The Hawk And The Wolf
by GunBunnyCentral
Summary: When young thief Claudia Donovan - better known to the world at large as Joshua Donovan the Mouse - makes an unprecedented escape from the dungeons of Aquila, she unwittingly becomes the key player in a looming battle of good versus evil. With justice and true love at stake, can she step up to become the hero everyone else seems to think she is? (A Bering & Wells Ladyhawke fusion.)
1. Prologue

The setting sun cast its sanguine light over the tiny band of riders as they raced through the hills, limning them in its rays like the bloodiest and most terrible of omens. It called to mind everything the quartet of riders were fleeing - lust, chaos, blood, death - though they all did their best not to dwell on that fact.

Hours later, the group - three armed warriors atop their chargers and one unarmed woman atop her palfrey - had traded sunlight for moonlight, and empty fields for trees, with no sign of slowing their mad dash forward along the forest paths.

They didn't dare slow or stop with the soldiers still chasing them - the only thing saving their poor horses was the fact that the men they ran from weren't nearly as well-horsed, along with a stubborn refusal to sacrifice the loyal and much-loved beasts unless there was no other choice. Some small loss of speed to preserve their mounts, they'd decided when they set out, was better than losing the mounts altogether.

Capture was death for the three on chargers, and a fate worse than death for the one those three sought to protect. They'd all expected trouble sooner or later - had known that leaving their home would be inevitable - but the expectation had in no way prepared them for the obsessive evil finally revealed to be living among them.

The balmy, moonlit spring night - either in mockery of their circumstance, or as a beacon of hope to soothe their fears - could not have been more perfect. Whatever its intended message, it allowed the four riders to eke the most out of both their mounts and their own skill in the saddle, finally giving them a lead on their pursuers that they had been able to maintain and even gradually increase.

A certain measure of hope had already begun to build within them all even before they burst into the small clearing, a wildflower-covered vision of nature's glory in the moonlight that not even their current dire straits could diminish. The quartet, in unison and without a word, slowed to a stop as they cleared the trees, unable to do anything other than absorb the beauty before them - a much needed reminder that not everything good had been taken from them, even if it felt like it had.

The woman on the palfrey, face aglow with a beatific smile, guided her mount to the center of the clearing. She gently turned the beast in a slow circle, awe filling her eyes and her expression as she took in the exquisite scene surrounding them - no matter what threat still loomed behind them all, no other response was possible for her.

Finally, she let out a delighted cry that trailed off into a peal of equally delighted laughter, before covering her mouth with her hands to quiet herself. Her unbridled burst of joy was apparently infectious - the horses all whickered in response even as the woman's three human companions smiled amongst themselves.

One of the other riders - a woman as well, though the armor made that difficult to tell for certain at first glance - took up position next to the palfrey. Tossing her cloak a little further back off her shoulders, she tugged her dark hair free of the cord that bound it and shook her head gently to settle it all into place.

The other woman - her own lighter hair a riotous, tangled mass of long curls after all that riding - rolled her eyes and huffed in mock exasperation before reaching out to tug playfully at her companion's smooth, straight locks with a gloved hand. The companion caught that delicate hand as it pulled back and, feeling equally playful, planted a kiss on the deerskin-clad knuckles.

Two pair of eyes - one set a mossy green, the other a dark, rich brown - locked then as the women shared a smile meant only for themselves. Even the unexpected beauty of the clearing faded away as they gazed at each other contentedly, though it could be argued that the magical setting had already done its part.

Their gazes remained locked even as the darker-haired woman continued holding her beloved's hand captive within her own. Without loosening her grip or breaking eye contact, she turned that hand so that the open palm was facing up, tracing out the curve in its center with her thumb.

She let go then, but only long enough to peel away the deerskin glove standing between herself and the warm flesh underneath it. That done, she pressed a slow, gentle kiss to the soft, newly-bared skin covering the hollow of her beloved's palm, still never averting her eyes, and brought a blush to the other woman's cheeks.

It was a familiar and deeply intimate gesture, the kind that only lovers shared, but something in the tension resonating between the two women said that they had yet to truly cross that line.

The reason for that restraint became almost comically obvious as the other two riders cleared their throats and shifted restlessly in their saddles - both men were apparently quite used to playing chaperone for their friends, given their amused and indulgent expressions, but they also understood that now was hardly the time for such distractions.

Neither woman was particularly repentant, but they weren't really expected to be - everyone present had done too much soul-searching on the true nature of love and happiness to be locked into a single, narrow-minded notion of what either should be. That was why they were all running together, actually - they all knew beyond any doubt that the love they'd just gotten a glimpse into, for all its seeming unorthodoxy, was holier by far than the twisted but socially acceptable lust that lay in the heart of the man they fled.

The two women hoped to find some place where they could simply be together in peace, and the two men with them merely hoped to find some place where those they loved best had the chance to be happy. It hardly seemed like the sort of dream to provoke violence, but even daring to entertain it had carried a price paid in blood that night, exacted by those who saw the matter differently.

It was a bitter, heavy weight to carry, together or separately, and it seemed to settle heaviest on the shoulders of the woman riding the palfrey as their moment of respite came to an end. None of tonight's bloodshed had been her doing or her fault, but there was no escaping the fact that she was its cause, and the thought grieved her.

One of the men pulled up alongside her and squeezed her hand as they prepared to set out again, earning him a genuine, if tiny, smile. They were family - cousins, rather than the siblings it was easy to mistake them for - and their devotion to each other was clear to see even without the insignia marking the man as his lady cousin's protector.

The other two riders were family as well - in their case, one would be absolutely correct in assuming they were brother and sister. There wasn't any other conclusion to draw, really - they were twins, their identical armor only serving to highlight the uncanny similarity of their shared features. Somewhat less demonstrative than the others, a soldierly squeeze on the shoulder seemed to be all they required to comfort each other.

Above and beyond all that, however, the four of them were a strange sort of family in and of themselves - they'd grown up together, and had every intention of growing old together. Taking comfort from that sense of solidarity - as well as from the lingering beauty of their final look around the clearing - they set out with renewed purpose as they literally and metaphorically closed ranks to protect each other.

Random as their flight through the forest might have seemed, it did have a plan and a purpose. There was one place they could still find sanctuary, at least long enough to rest a little and form some sort of plan for themselves, and they raced for it as quickly as they dared. Fortunately, after the distance they'd already covered, it was not much farther ahead, and it seemed like hardly any time passed before they arrived.

Sanctuary, in this case, was a literal term - their destination was a tiny rural church, not at all wealthy but lovingly maintained to the best ability of its congregation. It was a quaint and welcomingly serene sight under the moon's silver rays, and a light burned in the windows despite the late hour - none of them were the least bit surprised to find they were somehow expected, knowing as they did the priest who ministered there.

That priest - an old friend - was at the door before they'd even crossed the small churchyard, still dressed in the alb and cincture that marked his office. His smiling face with its warm, frank blue eyes was a welcome and comforting sight - as was the familiar outline of the odd, closely-shaven hairstyle he'd affected the entire time they'd known him - and they happily allowed themselves to be ushered inside the church proper.

They'd met the priest years ago when he had served the Church in Aquila, before he'd grown uncomfortable enough there to seek out his present assignment here, and he was one of the few people privy to the true nature of the two women's relationship. In fact, he'd been instrumental in helping them accept that there was nothing inherently wrong with their feelings for each other - he'd also helped them come to terms with having to conceal their affections for the time being, a much less pleasant task.

He'd worried for all of them after he'd left the city, sharing their same fears of accidental discovery and its consequences, knowing it would happen sooner or later. He was also just as aware of the corruption slowly warping Aquila - hence his departure from it - but even he found it hard to believe the tale his friends laid out for him.

It took him a few moments to center himself again, righteous anger warring with compassion, but he made himself focus on the troubled souls in front of him. In short order, he'd shepherded them all into the nearby home he shared with his mother and sister, insisting that the quartet take a few minutes to rest and eat before doing anything else.

His mother and sister, rather than being upset at being woken by late-night guests, were only too happy to play hostess - they didn't need holy orders to share his desire to help those in trouble. Both women, in fact, shared his anger and indignation as he told them what had happened - they also shared his desire to help in any way possible.

That help, as it turned out, took an odd form, albeit one he was more than happy to work with. He'd returned from speaking with his mother and sister to find his four houseguests in the midst of conspiring something that had nothing to do with aiding their escape - they were, of all unaccountable things, busily planning a runaway marriage.

He'd explained that the marriage wouldn't be legally recognized in any way, just to be certain they all understood, but the group was adamant. He'd also seen the truth in the prospective brides' eyes when they'd pleaded that they didn't care what the law said so long as God recognized their vows, and found he couldn't argue with it - assuring them of his belief that God would indeed honor the rite, he'd agreed to perform the ceremony for them.

It was just as well, really - once his mother and sister heard about the possible wedding, their eyes took on that determined glint he knew from experience not to argue with. Before anyone even had time to fully process what was happening, his mother and sister had whisked the brides-to-be away to start getting ready.

Somewhere in the resultant whirlwind, the church got decorated, suitable gowns were found amongst the brides' saddlebags, and the brides-to-be were perfumed, curled, and be-ribboned within an inch of their lives. Once his mother and sister turned their attention to rest of the wedding party, the priest was able to take a few moments and hear confession from each of the brides so he could issue the proper penance before the ceremony.

Once the chaos finally abated, the entire group found themselves gathered before the altar, everything but the simple happiness of the moment forgotten. The actual ceremony itself did not take long - the preparations for it took more time than the thing itself - but that fact said nothing about the depth of feeling behind it. These two, the priest had realized as he watched them, would honor their vows until their dying breath - beyond it, even, if such a thing were possible.

None of them doubted that the right choice had been made, as they celebrated afterward with a round of sweet wine. The days ahead would be difficult - however much they all hoped everything would turn out right in the end - but they were celebrating the affirmation of everything they fought for, and that could only give them courage and hope.

Soon enough - it was getting later by the moment, after all - the blushing brides were led to their bridal chamber, accompanied by a chorus of singing, laughter, and slightly ribald well-wishing. The priest and his family went to tend to the church, leaving the men to catch what sleep they could with a pair of newlyweds under the same small roof.

The brides, finally free to cross the line they'd been so careful of, quickly forgot about anyone except each other. The lighter-haired of the two - married briefly to a young lord she'd loved and lost, only to unexpectedly find love a second time even in her grief - knew enough of love's physical expression to distract her new wife from her nervousness, and put the knowledge to good use.

For the most part, however, the journey was new to them both, and the joy of discovering the path together soon overcame any shyness they might have felt at sharing their bodies for the first time. The moon overhead gave way to the sun before they'd finished exploring each other, and that sun was high up in the sky by the time they finally slept, sated and happy.

None of them - not the newlyweds, nor the brother and cousin who just laughed and shook their heads at the cries from the other room - could have known that those blissful hours were quite possibly the last moments of true happiness they'd ever see. Or that the few hours of sleep they'd all snatched afterward were the last time they'd rest in any sort of real peace.

Everything they'd been fleeing - blood, chaos, pain, death - descended on them at sunset, seemingly carried on the storm clouds that suddenly filled the sky. Dark magic struck down two of the four riders - the twins - as the sun sank beneath the horizon, though they all managed to escape despite the calamity. The cousins thought for a few short hours that they might somehow be safe from whatever had afflicted their loved ones, but the magic had merely waited until sunrise to take them.

It was a brutal, artfully malicious curse that kept each pair isolated from the other, but it didn't kill them - neither did the men chasing them, who eventually just gave up their pursuit. It left them all alive, but not a day went by that they didn't wish it had taken their lives instead...


	2. Chapter One

_Sunrise, the city of Aquila. Two years later._

The figure in black sat atop their charger among the hills surrounding the city, watching silently as dawn burned away the night's fog and the rising sun sent its golden rays sweeping over the walls that had once been home.

The rider was a study in black - black horse, black armor, black cloak, black mood - that called to mind either a born-and-bred soldier, or someone lost in deep mourning. Both - and neither - were true.

The title of soldier had been lost to disgrace not of the rider's making, and mourning required that the one mourned actually be dead, did it not?

The charger - clearly uninterested in whatever vigil its human master felt compelled to keep with every new dawn - shifted restively as its rider sighed. It was the sigh of one who had given up hope entirely, but had yet to admit it. What did the sunrise and the sight of Aquila really matter when they could never return, and *she* would never see the sun again?

Still, the figure in black couldn't bear the thought that the miracle they sought might somehow present itself on the one morning they failed to hold their vigil - a punishment for giving up on her, on them - and so they made the same ride each time the sun began its fresh climb over the horizon.

The horse chuffed and shuffled again, but this time there was almost a certain sympathy in the gesture. The rider reached out to scratch between the Frisian's ears, taking some slight solace in even imaginary understanding. "You miss it, too, don't you, dear boy?"

Aquila and its surrounding hills really had been home once, the former soldier a proud and beloved protector of its people. In the early light, it seemed almost possible to recapture those days - the stones of the proud, ancient city with its equally proud and ancient Roman name gleaming golden and perfect for all the world to see.

Aquila was the Latin word for eagle, and the city had once been worthy of the name.

Now, however, the ever-increasing light showed the truth of what that beautiful eagle had become, something black and terrible and ill-omened as a crow. The once-plentiful fields around the city lay parched and barren, already harvested of what pitiful crops had managed to grow after a dry and blistering summer that cared nothing for the lives that depended on its non-existent benevolence.

Even if the season had been kind, rumor had it that taxes had been raised so high that the fruits of even the best harvest would not have been enough to pay them and still leave food for the hungry.

The seemingly lovely streets winding around behind those walls - so beautiful and majestic from a distance - likely teemed with the poor, the sick, and the starving, just as invisible from within the walls as from without.

The majestic and breathtaking Cathedral alone remained untouched by the changing light, a beacon of hope to those of faith. A bitter irony, then, that the very place that once would have been their comfort and solace, doing all it could to help those in need, was now the very source of that need.

The Holy Roman Church - or rather, its representatives here in Aquila - had raised taxes time and time again, seeking to protect its own coffers rather than use its wealth to ensure that none of its children went cold or hungry. That much had been true even when the rider called Aquila home, sadly, but there had been at least some attempt to keep the greed and corruption in check.

The rider's eyes narrowed, and their jaw set, as they looked to the Cathedral again, knowing that the man responsible for the sorry state of both Aquila and the rider's own life was holding Mass there even now, black heart hidden behind the face of a holy man.

The rider would have been heartened to know that the faithful gathered at the Cathedral were not entirely unaware that their Bishop was hardly the infallible saint he pretended to be. The rider would also have been equally appalled to know that it simply didn't matter to them, in the end, because hope had fled some time ago. The Cathedral with its marble and stone and stained glass windows was as close to heaven as any one of them were likely to get, and there was no point pondering the bitter truth that their holy leader took his purported reward in the here and now while they looked for theirs in the afterlife.

The Bishop Of Aquila was, in fact, observant enough to understand all of this and arrogant enough to flaunt his wealth in the face of his starving congregation - today was no different than any other in that regard.

The weary townsfolk - a veritable sea of gaunt, hopeless faces - gazed impassively at the altar, unmoved by the religious drama playing out in front of them. Some felt a swell of something - hope, peace, faith - as the pipe organ rang out through the cathedral loudly enough to carry clear out into the hills, but that would fade not long after the music itself did.

There was a time, perhaps, when the Bishop would have been disturbed by this - the spiritual health of his flock was his office's primary obligation - but he'd long since lost the faith that had called him to the Church, assuming he'd even had it begin with.

The Bishop, despite his advancing years, was a trim, stern figure with close-cropped hair the color of steel and light eyes that had long since lost any warmth or compassion. He was respected, or perhaps just feared - not seeing any difference between the two, it was inconsequential to him - and he felt that the luxury he surrounded himself with was simply his just due for a life spent in at least nominal service to the Church. Surely God's needs up in Heaven were much simpler, less worldly, and far less costly than his own here on earth.

That morning, he barely even glanced out at his congregation, focused instead on the purely secular wealth and beauty that surrounded him as he stood at the altar, chanting the Credo in Latin that most of them could not understand even as they responded by rote in kind.

His attention was all for the tableau he had so painstakingly crafted around himself. Twin altar boys - sons of of a minor Aquila noble all too eager to tie himself to the Church's power, chosen for their cherubic beauty and of no consequence to the Bishop otherwise - approached with the Communion chalice, all three dazzling in the Cathedral's morning light.

That chalice was a particular point of pride to the Bishop. He'd told his flock that it was the Holy Grail, and it was beautiful enough that it might well have been - a gleaming confection of gold and priceless gems that had cost more money than many of his congregation would see in their lifetimes.

Equally impressive jewels shone on the Bishop's hands as he raised the chalice and blessed it, but only two particular rings caught his attention that morning. The first was the ring of his office, bright gold with a large emerald in the center - he always took care to ensure that the light reflected off that ring whenever possible, as a reminder of his station and influence. The other was almost identical, except that this one housed a large black diamond in its center rather than an emerald.

That ring was even more dear to him than his ecclesiastical ring, though it meant nothing to anyone who saw it. It was an enduring reminder of the vengeance he'd taken on the one coveted possession that had dared to escape his grasp, as well as those who had helped his prize escape, and he had to stifle the urge to kiss it in full view of those assembled in the pews before him. It was all well enough in the end, as one of the young altar boys - too simple to know the blasphemy committed - innocently kissed it instead of the ecclesiastical ring when the Bishop held out his hand to bestow the ritual blessing on the child and his brother.

As if to comment on the act, a loud crack rang through the Cathedral from the city square outside. Peering through one of the Cathedral's open windows, the Bishop traced the noise back to the three bodies - unrepentant thieves all - now swinging from the gallows. There seemed some sort of vaguely ominous message in the moment, but the Bishop couldn't decipher it and quickly turned his attention back to the Mass, unease forgotten.

Meanwhile, a crowd of the less devout had gathered at those same gallows. Those assembled there watched the three thieves hang - a few were angry, a few simply numb, but most by and large were just grateful it wasn't their own necks stretching in the noose. The Bishop's Guard had men stationed there all the same, just in case things got a little interesting, and their black and crimson uniforms stood out distinctly from the drab peasant clothing worn by most of the crowd.

Four of the guards had been specially tasked with bringing out the prisoners sentenced to be hanged, and they eyed the growing crowd nervously as they awaited the order to haul the next group out of the dungeons.

Their commander Walter Sykes - the Captain Of The Guard - was an imposing man with close-cropped sandy hair and blue eyes as cold and unyielding as his disposition, and he had the air of one given to easy violence simply because he was skilled at it. He'd been appointed to his post two years ago by the Bishop himself, after the previous Captain Of The Guard had been disgraced and outlawed for reasons never fully revealed to anyone.

The old Captain had been both respected and admired, and the men had served easily and well. Sykes was neither respected nor admired, but he was feared, and so the men gave him the same obedience. They never offered him the same loyalty, however, and whispers of discontent increased in strength and number among the troops as life grew bleaker and harsher under their new commander - some soldiers even dared mutter that the old Captain would surely return soon to put everything right.

Sykes heard, and listened, but his fear of exactly that circumstance led him to crack down even more harshly, driving a further wedge between himself and his men as it all forged itself into a vicious circle.

At that moment, however, staring up at the gallows, Sykes cared little for such considerations. Instead, he smiled with satisfaction at the gruesome site of the dangling corpses - the wretches had deserved what they got for trying to steal from the Bishop Of Aquila's storehouses. His white and gold helm, the symbol of his post, twinkled in the sunlight as he nodded his approval. "Well, they certainly won't be hungry now..."

The Bishop had appointed him personally because he was hard and cold and loyal, willing to carry out whatever orders he received with no undue bellyaching or qualms of conscience. Even better, he actually enjoyed his work. Turning to his lieutenant, he gave the order his men had been waiting for. "Marcus! Bring out the next three."

Marcus Diamond - known to most as simply Marcus - gave a sharp salute and ordered his three men to follow him across the square toward the dungeons. Their journey led them to an underground passage, where they circled down a spiral of dank, slippery, narrow stairs cut from solid rock - the only path in or out of the miserable prison they'd all come to know uncomfortably well in the past few months. The air grew thick and foul before they'd even reached the bottom, carrying the moans and sobs of the unlucky wretches held down below.

The Aquila dungeons were inside a vast cavern carved out of the very bedrock that lay under Castle Aquila proper, and popular opinion was that they were as deep and inescapable as Hell itself once inside. The cavern was divided into a warren of cells and cages, each offering a clear view of the implements of torture regularly used there.

Marcus called out as he and his men reached the bottom of the stairs, announcing their presence even as he summoned assistance. The head jailer - a huge man with muscle under all that fat - came lumbering toward them, massive ring of keys jingling at his waist, the torch in his hand illuminating the irritated expression on his piggish face.

"Can't you lot build a bigger gibbet?" the jailer groused. "I've got more important things to do down here!"

One of Marcus' men just scoffed and rolled his eyes, making a show of holding his nose. "At least you aren't in one of those cages."

Marcus made an amused noise, and the head jailer suddenly looked to him, eyes wide as he realized that he may have overstepped his bounds - Marcus Diamond was known to be only marginally more forgiving than his Captain, and that only on a good day.

Rolling his eyes, Marcus just gestured for the jailer to lead them to the next group of prisoners. The jailer, mindful of his good fortune, suddenly became a model of cooperation and efficiency as he navigated them through the maze of cells and cages.

The noise among the cells died away as the group of guards passed. The prisoners went quiet and shrank back from the disgusting, mold-slicked bars of their cages as they saw Marcus and his men - no matter what they'd endured down in the dungeons, they still believed that worse existed, and that cowering in the shadows was preferable to confirming what that 'worse' might be.

Marcus, ignoring the terrified prisoners they passed, felt a sudden surge of eagerness as they stopped before the cell containing the next batch of victims for the gallows. He remembered one of them in particular - had tossed him into this cell personally - and was eager to see the bastard's neck stretch.

The young thief - a scrawny thing of no account except that he was too clever by half for his own good - had eluded the Bishop's Guard for months, making them all look like idiots as he struck where and when he would. By the time the slippery rat been captured, he'd become something of a minor legend amongst the people, and only seeing him hang would restore the Bishop's Guard's reputation and the people's proper understanding of what happened to thieves, even clever ones.

They were in the deepest recesses of the dungeons by now, and it took Marcus' eyes a moment to adapt to the dim light. The worst part by far, however, was the smell - holding his breath only did so much to block out the overwhelming stench of sickness, unwashed bodies, and human filth.

Finally, though, he was able to see clearly enough to peer through the bars of the cell to see the two prisoners within. One sat immobile and unresponsive as a statue, his mind having fled without the ability take his body along for the journey. The other prisoner alternated between tuneless singing and muttering unintelligibly under his breath.

Neither, Marcus could tell, was the prisoner he wanted, and he pressed as close to the bars as he dared, trying to get a better view of the cell's shadows.

Seeing no one else hiding in the cell, he turned to the jailer, assuming some mix up in location. "This is the wrong cell. I want Joshua Donovan - the one they call The Mouse."

The jailer raised the torch to examine the almost illegible symbols scratched into the cell door. "This is the correct cell, Lieutenant. I'm certain of it."

Suddenly, the muttering prisoner came to life, dancing around and running his filthy hands through his thin, scraggly gray hair. "The Mouse? The Mouse? The Mouse has left our house."

Marcus looked at the jailer, who merely shrugged. "Hugo Miller, Lieutenant - he's crazy as they come. I wouldn't pay any attention to-"

Hugo Miller, though, was insistent. "No Mouse today - he's run away!"

After that, Miller pointed with one bony hand to a spot on the floor, and Marcus gaped in disbelief at the open drainage grate. The hole the grate covered couldn't have been more than a foot square, and that was if he was being generous.

Surely, not even a scrawny, half-grown wretch like Donovan could fit down that hole, much less navigate through it to escape. As if to mock Marcus' assessment, a rat came crawling up out of the drain and scurried unconcernedly across the filthy cell.

"To ease the pain," Miller chortled, "he's down the drain!"

"Shut up, you imbecile," Marcus ordered before turning back to the jailer. "Open this cell - now!"

The jailer, afraid of being blamed for the escape of a prisoner and suffering a commensurate punishment, hurried to obey, scrambling frantically to get the cell door unlocked and opened.

Marcus rushed in, his men behind him, and seized Miller by the front of his shirt. "Where is Joshua Donovan?!"

Miller cringed back in fear, but held his ground. "I already told you, gentle lord!"

Miller gestured at the drain again, grinning as he pointed to himself. "I tried to follow him, but I couldn't fit. I'm not skinny enough yet, but give me time."

An eerily sane and defiant twinkle came into Miller's eyes. "I suppose you'll just have to kill me twice, my lord."

Marcus shoved Miller away from him, wiping his hands on his surcoat. Suddenly, all he could see was Joshua Donovan's laughing face as the boy mocked the Bishop's Guard's inability to keep him behind bars.

Urging his men roughly back out of the cell, he started giving frantic orders, managing to stop just short of bellowing. "Find Joshua Donovan! Search every drain. Search every sewer. Search anywhere he could possibly hide."

The men just looked at him blankly, uncertain of their ability to carry out such a daunting task, and Marcus exploded. "Find him, damn you! Find him, or Captain Sykes will hang all of you in his place!"

He didn't bother adding that he would likely be swinging right beside them if The Mouse remained at large.

Listening to his men dash off at speeds only fear for their lives could generate, he spared a brief moment of gratitude that he didn't have to explain this to the Bishop. To Sykes, yes, and that was bad enough, but not to the Bishop...

Marcus shuddered at the thought. He had an understanding with Sykes - they each knew how the other worked and respected it - but there was something not at all right about the Bishop. The man was just plain frightening, and Marcus preferred to deal with him as a little as possible.

Considering the likely punishment, Marcus began rapidly sifting through ways to keep himself from being blamed. Perhaps he could find the proper way to put this all to the Captain...

Turning back to the cell, he stared at the drain cover again in bewilderment. There was no way such an escape should have been possible...

"Unbelievable," he muttered at last. "Unbelievable."

Turning to go, he couldn't help but feel a certain grudging admiration for the cunning young thief. Not that it would do the wretch any good, or save the poor bastard from a sound beating at Marcus' own hands once he was safely back in their custody...


	3. Chapter Two

Far below Aquila castle, the drain hole that had so mystified Marcus Diamond opened onto what may as well have been another world - the Aquila sewers, a world even more convoluted and forbidding than even the castle dungeons.

Those sewers had been created with the town itself back in Roman times, a marvel of Roman engineering that took advantage of the natural system of caverns discovered underneath the then-fledgling settlement, perfect for drainage and waste disposal.

They had been part of an orderly, structured plan once, built with the same careful design as Aquila itself. Since the Empire's demise centuries ago, however, the carefully planned and tended sewer system had been left to crumble and decay as the city above them spread out haphazardly across the surrounding plain. What little work *had* been done to maintain and expand the sewers had resulted in an unfathomable maze tunneling underground beneath every building and street in Aquila.

So, another world, then, and one that no sane citizen of the city had any urge to ever enter.

That secret, subterranean lair generally lay waiting in silence, endlessly patient, disturbed only by the occasional noisy vermin and the constant rush and drip of water and other things best left unnamed. Today, though, something new broke the silence there.

The noises from the drainage hole - grunts and gasps and scraping sounds - were almost inaudible at first, but eventually grew so loud that they echoed through the empty tunnels of the sewers below. No source for the noise was yet apparent, but the final revelation of it would have amazed had anyone been present to witness it, as an arm suddenly emerged from the drainage hole into the open air.

The arm flailed wildly, waving up and down and around in what could only be surprise and triumph. After the arm, unbelievably, part of a shoulder emerged as well.

Once the arm and shoulder were free, the rest of the body they were attached to slid from the drainage hole bit by bit, like a child from the womb - and that tiny, slender body belonged to one Claudia Donovan, thief and escape artist.

Finally wriggling and twisting herself free, Claudia - better known as Joshua, the name of her elder brother, long since dead - dropped to the floor and tried to catch her breath.

She sat gasping for air, barely even registering the stench of the tunnels as her lungs filled completely with oxygen for the first time in what had to have been hours. Looking up at the drainage hole in bemused disbelief as she realized what she'd accomplished, a small smile crooked one corner of her mouth.

"Kinda like when I was born," she murmured after a moment, then shuddered involuntarily. "Ick, what a memory..."

Shuddering again, she paused to take stock of her condition. The miraculous escape had not left her body unmarked - her skin had been scraped raw in several places, and her nails were bloody and ragged from clawing her way down along the drain. Her clothes, little better than rags to begin with, were now rags covered in slime and filth.

Still, she had managed the impossible. It had taken hours to force herself along that drain, long terrible hours that had felt like an eternity. The drain itself had not been a simple straight line, dropping straight down to the sewers, but a series of bends and switchbacks, like a snake - more than once, she'd found herself trapped in one of those unknown coils, unable to move and convinced she would die there.

The same spirit that had led to the daring escape plan in the first place, though, had urged her on each time, refusing to accept defeat, and she had managed to free herself, moving forward until she had won free of the drain hole entirely.

Claudia Donovan, the Mouse, had escaped the dungeons in a feat of unparallelled brilliance, and the good people of Aquila would never be troubled by her again - if she could just find the way out of their sewers.

To that end, she crouched where she'd landed, looking around to see what she could make of her surroundings. The immensity of the sewer system almost overwhelmed her - she'd plied her less-than-honest trade in many cities over the years to keep herself alive, but most of those cities had simply had some sort of channel running down the middle of their streets.

The darkness, at least, was not total. Dim light filtered down at various intervals from the seemingly endless drain openings above her head - after her time in the darkest part of the dungeons, it was plenty of light for her to see by.

Of course, the first thing Claudia happened to see was a human skeleton, embedded in the black sludge not an arm's length away from her. The yellowed skull seemed to grin at her as she jerked back with a startled cry, but she gave it a rueful grin of her own.

"Big guy, huh?" Claudia murmured, studying the large skeleton speculatively as she drew herself up to her own not-so-impressive height. "And yet you see where God in his infinite wisdom has put us both."

She gestured vaguely at the sewer tunnel around her to illustrate her point, then looked up as she suddenly thought better of her words. "Not that I'm complaining or anything. Just, you know, stating the facts..."

Claudia had what she liked to consider a personal relationship with the Holy Trinity, formed in the absence of any family or friends to bond with instead. She was honestly rather comforted by the thought that the Lord always listened to her and watched over her, even when no one else could be bothered.

The last thing she wanted was to sound ungrateful when her prayers had actually been answered - she'd come out alright thus far, and it wasn't for her to judge or speak out if that answer seemed a bit of a mixed blessing.

Sighing, Claudia picked the most likely direction and began walking, the ooze under her feet squelching against what was left of her shoes.

Far above Claudia - though not nearly so far above as Heaven - the Bishop's Guard were spreading out through the streets of Aquila in search of the escaped thief. A squad of them entered the belfry, at Captain Sykes' order, and started ringing the enormous bells - those bells rang out across Aquila, sounding an alarm for the first time in years.

In the Cathedral, the Bishop was still holding Mass. As the bells tolled out their unheard-of alarm, filling the vast hall, the congregation began to look at each other in consternation - the Bishop, catching sight of Sykes at the back of the crowd, forced himself to hide his own concern.

His Captain Of The Guard stood near the back of the Cathedral, just outside the doorway to a private chapel. The gold on his helmet - a sign of trouble all on its own when worn inside - flashed in the light as Sykes nodded toward the empty chapel.

The Bishop continued with the Mass, though his sing-song chanting in Latin took on a certain ominous quality it had lacked before...

In the sewers down below, Claudia the Mouse crept her way through the tunnels like the animal she'd been nicknamed for, crouched so low her back ached as she worked her way through a low, narrow passage leading from one vast chamber to another. At last, she was finally able to straighten back up, out of breath and the muscles in her back pinched and cramping.

Grimacing, she stopped to get her bearings, pointlessly wiping her filthy face on an equally filthy sleeve and squinting back the way she'd come before looking back to the path before her. She couldn't see anything other than the same indistinguishable, patternless maze of caverns and tunnels, all filled with the same pools of water, refuse, and other things best left nameless.

For one gut-churning, heart-stopping moment, Claudia entertained the notion that she might have actually died, and was currently wandering through her own private corner of Hell.

She shook her head in denial, ignoring the disgusting mix of water and slime that flew from her wet hair. That motion cinched it for her, actually - she was way too gross and miserable right now to be dead.

She was very much still alive then, she decided, though that only reassured her so much. She had no idea how much longer she'd have to go on in this maze until she found the way out, and it was getting harder and harder to keep trudging forward as panic continued to squeeze harder and harder at her chest. There was a very real possibility that she might never find her way out of this place, and would end up dying here after all.

Suddenly too weary and frightened to continue, Claudia sat down in the muck, shivering with the chill of the place. "Alright, Mouse, time for a little rest break - but then you're getting right back up again..."

Noting her clenched fists, she willed her hands back open and forced herself to take several deep breaths, one after another - she was pretty much immune to the stink by now, anyway, since she smelled just as bad.

Once her breathing had calmed again, she made herself picture the ideal ending to her journey through the sewers. "Okay... so you're just gonna stroll on through here and straight out outta town. Piece of cake, like taking a Sunday walk or something..."

Unbidden, Claudia's mind reached out to conjure up a vivid image of that Sunday walk, blocking out the seemingly endless maze before her and the terror she felt at navigating it unaided on her own. Always too small or too weak or too poor, Claudia's intellect had been the one strength that never failed her, and her only refuge from a world that was hostile more often than not - her gifted imagination easily conjured a sun-drenched summer garden for her mind's eye to peruse, the vision so strong that she could almost smell the roses she saw around her.

Finally, she felt calm enough to leave that garden momentarily and face the reality in front of her, determination to escape renewed and stronger than ever. With a grimace, she stepped back into the disgusting, oily water that came up to her knees, picking her path carefully before melding it with her dream garden so she could return there as she walked.

Hours passed, anxiety giving way to resignation as Claudia continued to wander through the sewers - eventually, the path became so treacherous that the garden had to go, though her nerves had settled enough by then to be okay with that.

She was carefully picking her way along a ledge high up on one of the cavern walls, edging around an outcropping of stone, when she found herself suddenly face to face with a yowling, hissing, screeching demon. She screamed and threw herself backward, away from it, before realizing too late that it was just a cat.

The cat gave a final hiss and bounded off into the darkness, even as Claudia's own feet sent her scrambling off at a run in the opposite direction. As she turned to look back - just in case the cat wasn't actually a cat after all - she felt the sudden, sickening sensation of free fall as the ledge she was on dropped out from under her without warning.

Apparently, the very edge of the mud-slick shelf had crumbled away under her feet...

Acting instinctively, she shoved her fingers into the cold, slimy muck that made up the wall and dug in with every bit of strength she had. After an initial moment of blinding panic, she was able to think clearly enough to realize that her desperate gambit had paid off - she was no longer falling.

After that, Claudia suddenly became aware of the rushing noise that had filled the vast tunnel system the whole time she'd been in it - the sound of a river flowing past her somewhere in the darkness. Hardly daring to breathe, she forced herself to look down past her own dangling feet to see what lay there - and kept looking, down and down and down, much farther down than she was happy with...

The dark water of the subterranean river she'd heard rushed by below her. There was, of course, just enough light to show her the huge bleached animal skull that was caught in the sludge on the river's shore - and the long, ugly eels darting in and out of that skull's eye sockets.

Claudia closed her eyes with a small moan of fear that she couldn't quite prevent.

"Right," she said finally, addressing herself to Heaven. "Here's the deal. I will never, ever pick another pocket my whole, entire life - I promise."

Her voice trembled a little as she continued, fingers also beginning to cramp as she struggled to hold on. "So, the problem is that I can't keep my promise to You if I'm dead in a sewer. I'm guessing You know that already, so I'm going to assume a little help is on the way."

"I'm just going to go ahead and pull myself up now," she advised, feigning a confidence she didn't really feel. "If we have a deal, then this shelf I'm headed for will remain steady as a rock. If not - well, no hard feelings or anything, but I gotta say that I will be pretty disappointed..."

Gritting her teeth with the effort, Claudia kicked one foothold in the muck, and then another. She did the same with her hands, only to find that it held. Inch by wondrous inch, she worked her way back over to the shelf, until she was finally able to drag herself painfully back onto it.

She flopped down on the shelf's blissfully solid surface and shook out her limbs to ease the aching muscles, absolutely astonished to find that she was still in one piece. Cautiously, she got to her feet, not quite willing to trust to such unexpectedly good luck. "I don't believe it..."

Suddenly, the air around Claudia filled with organ music, and she looked up in awe. Above her head, a long shaft stretched Heaven-ward, filled with a glowing light. Claudia sank to her knees involuntarily as the music and light washed over her.

"Okay, so maybe I do believe it," she whispered hoarsely. Not wanting to seem ungrateful for God's timely assistance, she scrambled to her feet and began to work her way up into the shaft.

The newly revealed path to Heaven was not an easy one, by any means. It was steep and crooked and slippery and just plain gross, filthy water dripping onto Claudia's face from the weeping rock lining the way.

The iron rungs providing hand- and footholds were heavily corroded, and seemed to have been there for as long as anything else. One gave under Claudia's weight, halfway to the top, and threatened to send her tumbling back down into the darkness - she just barely managed to jam her foot into another rung to stop herself. The new rung protested the abuse - loudly - but it held her.

Claudia looked up, breathing heavily from her continued exertions. The light above her head was growing stronger the higher she climbed, and the organ music was almost deafening now. A choir suddenly began singing as well, urging her on, and she renewed her climb with fresh inspiration - finally, she reached the top of the shaft and looked around, eyes widening at what she saw.

Above her, a heavy iron grate covered the top of the shaft. Even higher above it, she spied a painfully radiant vision of light and darkness. She closed her eyes against it, then opened them again, and the vision resolved itself into the intricate, luminous patterns and colors of a stained glass window.

Claudia clung to that grate and just stared, suddenly sure of where she was. She knew that stained glass window, had seen it many times - it was the rose window above the doors to the Cathedral. The window filled her limited field of vision, but she now understood that the celestial music she'd heard was in fact Sunday Mass.

There could be no more perfect cover for her escape - God had been listening to her this whole time after all. She braced herself against the walls of the shaft and started pushing up on the grating.

Not two paces away, unseen from Claudia's restricted vantage point, stood the solid boots and impressively uniformed back of the Captain Of The Guard. Sykes frowned as he stood there, impatiently waiting in the vestry for Mass to end so he could relay his unwelcome but urgent news.

A family stood near him - a poor family, by their ragged clothes - singing happily along with the choir and occasionally stealing anxious glances in his direction. The family's youngest, a little girl, was as bored and unimpressed as Sykes himself, and stared at him openly, smiling at him every time she caught his eye.

The little girl's attention was entirely diverted, though, once she spotted the grate on the floor near them all. She could hardly contain her excitement as fingers slid up through the grate to waggle around in the empty air above it. When the grate began to twitch and move, she couldn't hold back her amazed giggles, prompting her father to try and quiet her.

"Papa, look," she insisted as she pointed, tugging at her father's hand.

Sykes, who'd been idly watching the girl from time to time for lack of anything better to do while he waited, glanced over at her again when he heard her speak. He also watched the girl's father turn her back around to face the altar, but something had piqued his curiosity.

Turning to look back into the private chapel, curiosity suddenly began to mingle with suspicion. He took first one step away from the chapel, into the main space of the Cathedral, then another.

The choir burst into another loud, energetic salvo of song just as his heavy soldier's boots came down on the grate, right on top of Claudia's fingers. Sykes never even heard her cry of pain over the music as she let go and fell back down the shaft.

Claudia flailed as she bounced her way down the shaft, arms reaching wildly for any handhold at all. She finally caught hold of something, only to scream as the rotting arm snapped off the corpse it belonged to and sent her falling again.

She finally crashed down onto the ledge that had saved her earlier. Before she could do anything to stop it, momentum carried her right over the edge and toward the water - she felt the sickening sensation of free fall again, and barely had time to close her eyes and cover her nose before she hit the river.

Claudia plunged beneath the river's surface, sinking deeper than she'd expected, managing only by the grace of God not to get any of the disgusting water in her eyes, nose, or mouth. Her lungs burned as she fought her way to the surface, and even the foul air of the tunnels seemed sweet once she was able to breathe again.

The current swept her along as she floundered in its grip, lost among a sea of horrible things she deliberately left unidentified. Dazed and bruised by her fall, feeling half-drowned already, it took everything she had simply to stay afloat.

Her uncontrolled journey came to a suddenly halt as she found herself smashed up against something hard and unyielding that prevented any forward motion at all. Opening her eyes, she found herself pressed against an iron grate clogged with an untold amount of time's worth of the same refuse she refused to identify - she clung to the grate, mystified by its presence, until she realized that it meant she'd reached the city walls.

Looking up, she confirmed that daylight was in fact seeping through the barrier wherever it could. The grate stretched high above her, the last remaining bar to her freedom, solidly lodged into the stone roof of the sewer opening. The only way past it was to go underneath it - assuming there was some kind of usable opening underneath it in the first place.

Claudia clung to the iron bars a moment longer as she gathered her courage - then she took as deep a breath as she could, covered her mouth and nose, and dove under. The current caught her again for a moment, pulling her down below the dam of submerged debris - the rushing water pinned her there, trapped against the grate, despite her panicked attempts to free herself.

She groped frantically among the bars and spikes at the bottom of the grate, lungs aching and mind growing fuzzier by the moment, until another miracle happened. She suddenly found empty space beneath her searching fingertips - a small opening, perhaps too small for anyone else, but large enough for a tiny girl nicknamed The Mouse. Dragging herself through that empty space, she found herself shooting upward through the water on its other side.

She broke the surface - the water now fresher, cleaner - to find herself out in the blessed light of day. Sucking in one ragged gasp of breath after another, she stared up at the high, forbidding walls surrounding the city of Aquila - from the outside.

Claudia the Mouse had made it through the sewers and into the moat. She was free!

Then she heard the alarm bells still pealing from the Cathedral, accompanied by the sounds of shouting guardsman and the hoof-beats of their horses galloping past the city gates. She was free, but she was far from safe.

Squinting into the sunlight, she eyed the moat and the empty, barren fields beyond, finally alighting on the promised sanctuary of the distant hills. Sighing in resignation, Claudia began to drift further out into the moat, planning the best way to sneak past the soldiers hunting her.

Far, far up into the same hills that The Mouse had just been eying, the figure in black from earlier heard the unexpected sound of the alarm bells. They started so abruptly at the noise that, for the first time since they'd bonded so many years ago, the figure's charger became momentarily spooked and almost threw its rider as it bolted.

The pair did not need long to get the situation resolved, however, and they finally came to a stop with no harm done, finding themselves back at the site of that morning's vigil. Something like panic, hope, or desperation - or perhaps all three at once - crossed the rider's face as they stood staring down at the city, trying to understand what had happened.

Finally, after a few moments that felt like an eternity, the rider took the charger's reins back up and started down the road to Aquila. Another few moments, and both rider and horse were lost among the autumn foliage lining the winding path.


	4. Chapter Three

The Bishop, deep in thought, strolled through the courtyard gardens of Castle Aquila - his very own sumptuous and heavily guarded private domain - as if enjoying the warm afternoon sunshine were the only thing on his mind.

Roses and chrysanthemums stilled bloomed in profusion in the shelter of the gardens, conveying the impression that - as with everything under the Bishop's purview - nature itself was perfectly ordered and completely under human control.

The Bishop was accompanied as usual by his personal bodyguard and his secretary, both following at a discreet distance so as not to intrude while they waited to be of some service. That did not mean that the Bishop was unaware of their presence, or their covert scrutiny - outside his private chambers, he was on constant display, and his long years of playing politics as he rose through the Church had taught him never to reveal anything to anyone that he did not knowingly choose to reveal.

He glanced up and over as the sound of heavily booted feet treading on stone broke into his not-entirely-peaceful reverie - Captain Sykes, hurrying towards him along one of the garden paths.

The Bishop's mouth tightened involuntarily. He had not forgotten for one single moment the alarm that had interrupted Mass that morning, and the as-yet-unsolved problem it had announced, but he could not, would not, let even his trusted Captain see his concern. The exercise of complete power required the semblance of complete confidence and control, whatever the actual truth of the matter might be.

"I have urgent and alarming news, Your Grace," Sykes burst out as he came to a halt before the Bishop, the breach of etiquette in both acts belying his seemingly composed demeanor.

The Bishop eyed him coldly, patience even further strained by the breach of decorum. "You forget yourself, Captain Sykes."

Sykes froze as he realized his mistake - it did not do to disrespect the Bishop, even by accident. He dropped smoothly to his knees in practiced obeisance, kissing the emerald ring on the hand that the Bishop held out to him.

None of that could save him from the wrath that his next act was sure to incur, but he continued on anyway. "Forgive me, Your Grace. One of the prisoners has escaped the dungeons, and I thought it best to alert you as soon as possible."

The Bishop removed his hand, eyes no warmer than they had been mere moments before. "No one escapes the dungeons of Aquila, Captain. The people of this town have come to accept that as a matter of historical fact."

Sykes swallowed convulsively, beginning to sweat under the strain of the Bishop's displeasure. "My men are investigating as we speak. Until such time as we understand exactly what happened, I accept full responsibility for the situation."

"Yes," the Bishop murmured, "I'm sure you do."

Sykes, detecting what he hoped was a slight softening in the Bishop's tone, finally dared to lift his eyes. "To put it all into proper perspective, Your Grace, it would take a miracle to get through those sewers alive."

"I believe in miracles, Captain," the Bishop reminded him. "They are an integral component of my faith."

"Of course, Your Grace," Sykes temporized. "I merely meant that the situation is not as dire as it might seem. The escaped prisoner is a minor thief, little better than street trash, and not likely to evade us for long."

The Bishop's eyes went even colder, his tone becoming even more biting. "A slight breeze can herald a deadly storm, Captain Sykes. A single errant spark can create the fire that destroys an entire city."

The holy man looked away as his voice trailed off, and his eyes grew distant. It was as if he saw something no one else could, or held some secret, otherworldly knowledge that no mere mortal could hope to possess, much less comprehend. The effect, as always, was supremely unnerving.

Sykes rose to his feet, jaw set in determination. "If the thief is out there, Your Grace, my men and I will find him."

The Bishop stared into his Captain's eyes, his own eyes narrowing as he took the measure of the man before him. "Since you have my blessing in your endeavor, my son, I can only envy your inevitable success in rectifying this matter."

Sykes nodded his head like a schoolboy grateful for his own chastening, no longer trusting himself to meet the gaze of the Bishop in his gleaming white vestments. He knew - far better than most - that the man did not hold his position of power through simple cunning, or even just the questionable grace of God.

Turning on his heel, Sykes walked away as swiftly as dignity and composure would allow. He was not ashamed to admit to himself that the Bishop was the one man able to utterly terrify him, but he knew better than to let the Bishop, or anyone else, learn as much.

The Bishop watched his Captain Of The Guard retreat. Only after the man was out of sight did he dare to let his own apprehension show, fingering the great black diamond on his hand as one eyelid twitched in a nervous tic. Something about this entire unprecedented mess ran much deeper than any of them could see, and he severely disliked not knowing what it was...

Walter Sykes, having sensed that scrutiny as he left his uncomfortable audience, mounted his horse and rode away as if the hounds of Hell themselves were at his heels. His men, so far, had found no sign of that God-forsaken thief, and - while he cared little enough whether his men got punished for the escape - he had too much invested here to risk losing the Bishop of Aquila's favor permanently.

The thief was almost certainly dead by now, even though they'd had no luck finding his corpse. Still, on the slim chance that the bastard had truly escaped after all, Sykes called his men back together and began to lay out a plan for searching the countryside surrounding the city.

They gathered at the base of the curved bridge by the city gates, a motley group of men on horseback surrounding an ox-cart loaded with the supplies that would let them range further out in their search. Sykes fought to conceal his impatience as Marcus Diamond, his second-in-command, rode up, obviously having nothing good to report to his superior.

"Take ten men with you and ride toward Chenet," Sykes ordered Marcus. "I'll head north, toward Gavroche."

The sun was already starting to set, and there would be little enough time to search anywhere before nightfall. Fortunately, the men awaiting their orders were at least passably capable, comprehending the orders he continued issuing with a minimum of questioning and repetition.

Standing in his stirrups to see over the gathered group, Sykes searched for the supply cart, then spurred his mount toward it. Behind him, completely unnoticed, a small, waterlogged shadow, still dripping as it went, darted out from the shadows beneath the nearby bridge and slipped completely undetected beneath the legs of the guards' milling horses.

"You two," Sykes called out, addressing the pair of soldiers in the supply cart. "Take the supplies - we'll need them."

The unseen shadow slipped under the supply cart and then disappeared as Sykes pulled his horse up beside it. "We'll all meet outside the gates of Gavroche at noon tomorrow. Do *not* be late."

Sykes turned to look over the waiting men, his eyes as hard and cold as ever. "The name of the man who finds Joshua Donovan - also known as The Mouse - will be personally brought to the attention of the Bishop. So will the corpse of the man who lets Donovan get away!"

He watched his words find their mark in the time it took Marcus to gather his men and gallop off toward Chenet - he was momentarily struck by the sparks under their horses' hooves and the notion that he'd put that fire beneath them. Then, he jerked his own mount around toward the north and led his own men off at an equally impressive speed.

The pair of guards left to manage the supply cart merely looked at each other and shrugged - they had no need to hurry like everyone else, though they wouldn't be doing themselves any favors by dawdling there. The driver cracked his whip and the oxen yoked to the creaky old cart lurched forward as they started pulling it down the worn, rutted road.

Wedged up underneath the ox-cart, feet jammed into the rear corner joints, Claudia clung to its mud-spattered underside like a burr. She smiled as the cart finally began to move, then winced instead as she held on for dear life while groping with battered fingers for a better handhold.

A loose board in the bottom of the cart gave unexpectedly as she pushed against it during her explorations. She grinned and pushed the board aside, not one to ignore a potential boon simply because she didn't yet know how it could be of use.

Pushing her arm up through the gap, she let her hand search blindly - albeit carefully - amongst the supplies in the back of the cart. Her heart leapt when her fingers closed over something both instantly and unmistakably recognizable - the pouch full of coins she'd spotted hanging from the driver's belt earlier as she'd moved to her current hiding place.

Tugging gently on the strings with the skill born of years of practice, she paused automatically as the second guard began to speak.

"Poor bastard's dead, if you ask me," he muttered sullenly. "We're out here chasing a ghost."

Claudia paused to grin, then went back to working on the strings of the money pouch. The strings were tied far too tightly for her to do anything with, though, and she clenched her hands in frustration before carefully beginning a search of the rest of the driver's belt.

"Careful," the driver warned, and Claudia froze.

"They say the Bishop leaves all his windows open at night," the driver continued. "And that the voices of anyone who complains are brought to him on a black cloud."

Claudia just rolled her eyes at the driver's superstitious nonsense even as her fingers finally closed around his dagger, conveniently dangling right next to the money pouch on his belt. She slid it free of its sheath undetected, with skill also born of long years of practice, then used it to deftly cut the strings of the money pouch - both purse and dagger then disappeared through the gap in the floorboards without a single sound.

The passenger had finally quit laughing at the driver's absurd warning long enough to reply. "If His Grace can really hear me, then I have a message for him. Close the damn window!"

With that, the passenger passed gas, loudly and deliberately. Both soldiers began guffawing like idiots, and Claudia was torn between laughing with them and being completely disgusted.

Instead, she turned her attention to the money pouch, managing to open it and give it a shrewd once-over despite her precarious position under the cart. She smiled at her good fortune - she could live honestly for a good while on the money she'd just stolen - then felt a sudden twinge of guilt as she glanced up and saw the sliver of clear blue sky visible through the gap in the floorboards.

"Yeah, I know, I promised," she muttered to herself. "But I think we can both agree that I'm a little short on options here, Lord, and there's that whole 'helping those that that help themselves' thing. No worries, though - I'm happy to pay whatever penance You want to make this up to You."

Pausing a moment to ensure she had the timing just right, Claudia let go of the cart while also pulling her feet clear of the corners she'd had them braced against. The maneuver dropped her silently to the ground under the ox-cart, perfectly positioned for it to simply roll over her tiny frame without touching her in the slightest. The cart and its occupants, none the wiser, simply continued on as they had before, jolting away into the approaching twilight.

Claudia rolled to her knees and looked around, just in time to see the final rays of the sun slip behind the distant hills she sought. Somewhere entirely too close by for comfort, a wolf howled at the coming darkness, and the desolate, haunted sound echoed eerily across the land. Claudia glanced around with a shudder to find that the wolf was nowhere in sight - a good thing, she imagined, as there had been something almost human about that lupine wail of grief - and strode off in search of shelter for the night.

For the next two days, Claudia lived the sort of life she would have imagined for that poor wolf she'd heard howling. The men of the Bishop's Guard were everywhere, sweeping across the countryside like a new species of vermin, stirring up the hill folk with talk of vast reward for her capture and equally profound punishment for helping her in any way.

Frankly, Claudia couldn't quite credit the thoroughness and intensity of the search. They had to be spending more in gold and manpower in their frighteningly single-minded pursuit than she could ever possibly hope to steal in a year.

Whatever the reasoning behind their search, the presence of the Bishop's Guard meant that she didn't dare show her face at even the poorest peasant's hovel. By day, she fled through the forest, surviving on whatever leaves and berries and half-rotten leavings she could forage; by night she slept in trees, shivering and hungry, as she sought to avoid the equally pitiless hunters of the forests.

It was disheartening and infuriating. She had money enough to buy herself everything she needed - food, shelter, warm clothing - but didn't dare spend a single coin, and couldn't risk getting close enough to anyone's home to simply steal what she lacked.

Even the weather seemed determined to work against her. The skies that had remained stubbornly clear of rain, despite every prayer sent up begging for it, suddenly (and seemingly permanently) filled with storm clouds - clouds that unleashed a cold, never-ending torrent down on Claudia's head, backed by a sudden biting autumn wind.

By the second night, Claudia was beginning to wonder, at least a little, if it had all been worth it. She sat huddled in the crook of an ancient tree, under a nearly useless shelter of woven branches. Clinging to the tree with one numbed hand, as the rain poured down relentlessly, she tried to make herself eat the shriveled turnip held in her free hand - finally, as her stomach knotted and threatened to rebel, she gave up and simply tossed the half-eaten mess away in disgust.

Closing her eyes, she leaned her head against the tree, accepting the completeness of her present misery but still trying to imagine the better world that must surely exist beyond her current one. It had to be out there, somewhere, and she could find it if only she believed hard enough - smiling, she began trying to imagine what that better world must be like.

The first thing she decided on was that the sun must certainly be shining, its gentle, warming rays falling on rich and poor alike.

"It's summer," she murmured aloud, "always summer, and the sun is shining off the water."

The conjured sight was beautiful - blue sky filled with puffy white clouds, all reflected on the dancing surface of a cool, clean lake. As she pictured the lake, she couldn't help adding in a pair of young lovers, slowly strolling around the lake as they enjoyed the gorgeous day together. The young woman - absolutely perfect in every way, of course - gazed up at her companion adoringly, and he, handsome and equally perfect, gazed back with complete devotion...

Claudia woke in the morning to find that the weather, at least, had relented somewhat, and her hopes rose again in the bright sunlight now surrounding her. She even had the strength to laugh at herself a little as her body protested the climb down from her perch, as if it belonged to an arthritic old man rather than a young girl. Stretching to work the worst of the kinks out, she gulped down a handful of foraged berries and set back out into the woods.

The day remained sunny as she traveled, eventually becoming quite warm for fall, and she began to dry out for the first time in two days - this made her incredibly happy, despite highlighting exactly how filthy she still was.

Around noon, she found herself at a solitary cottage that looked to be at least momentarily empty. Sneaking in, she was hit by the heavenly aroma of fresh-baked bread, rivaled only by the underlying tang of freshly made soap. Claudia remained only long enough to grab some of both before she was off again and back into the woods.

Pausing just long enough to clean her hands, she scarfed down the bread as she sat in a patch of sunlight on the banks of a small river. She only realized after the fact that she had forgotten to say grace before eating, but she rather figured that was a forgivable offense. Basking in the sun after her first real meal in longer than she cared to think about, it was hard to fear much of anything, much less the God she was pretty sure had sent the food her way in the first place.

God had definitely been showing her a little kindness and mercy today, she realized as she went over it in her mind. There had not been a single sign of the Bishop's Guard all morning, and she began to let herself hope that she had finally outrun them - or perhaps they'd merely given up the hunt for a lowly thief as pointless. She'd hardly be insulted if they had...

Claudia decided - just in case the reprieve was only temporary - to make the most of the peace and quiet by getting herself cleaned up. The rain, providing its own silver lining, had helped wash quite a bit of the dirt and filth from both her body and her clothes, but the job was far from complete. Her clothes were even more ragged now than they had been to start with, but she was pretty sure that they were still passable enough if she could get them washed out.

With luck, she could steal some better clothes to wear if her own were still too obviously tattered once she was done tending to them. If she could make herself look presentable enough, the money she'd taken would let her pass herself off as an honest traveler rather than a hunted fugitive. A smile spread across her face as she pictured herself holed up at some nice inn for the night - a bowl of thick, hot stew to fill her stomach, enough mulled wine to shake the chill from her bones, and a soft, warm, clean bed to sleep in once food and drink had worked their magic on her.

The smile faded a bit as Claudia dipped a hand into the water at the river's edge and was reminded of how cold it was. Still, it wasn't unmanageably so, and the urge to scrub every inch of her skin - along with her hair - until it squeaked was almost overwhelming.

Locating a nice warm rock well-hidden by rushes and weeds, Claudia began to strip down for her bath. She grimaced a little as the coarse cloth of her shirt scraped against the nearly healed welts on her back - she'd led the Bishop's Guard on a merry chase for weeks until her complacency had finally allowed them to catch up with her, and they'd made her pay for every single day she'd evaded them.

Fortunately, she reminded herself as she unwrapped the cloth binding down her breasts, they hadn't beaten her in such a way as to break her ruse of being a boy. The thought of what *that* would have brought on in addition didn't even bear thinking about.

"You were seriously tested, kiddo, but you beat them all," she said to herself, grinning triumphantly, before looking up to the skies. "With a little divine assistance, of course."

Forcefully pushing any further dark thoughts away, she quickly removed the rest of her clothing and slid into the cold water, soap in hand. It wasn't quite as uncomfortable as she'd imagined - the water actually felt pretty good once she got used to it, and there was absolutely nothing that could take away from the feeling of being truly clean for the first time in what had to be weeks now.

At one point while working on scrubbing out her clothes, she caught sight of her face reflected on the water's surface and paused to study it a moment - at first glance, an understandably and not unpleasantly unkempt mop of red hair framed a pair of almond-shaped brown eyes that currently sparkled with amusement.

The face framed by that same tangle of hair wasn't entirely unpleasant either, Claudia decided. It was still a little scratched and sported a couple still-healing bruises, but her skin was otherwise clear and the underlying bone structure quite refined for someone of her low birth.

For a moment, she entertained a dual fantasy - one in which she was, in fact, the boy she pretended to be, and another in which was she was still a girl posing as a boy. In either scenario, she was secretly the lost child of some noble family, stolen away at birth by an evil nurse for some nefarious reason but lost before the plan could come to fruition.

Her parents - nobles both, of course - had no idea that their lost infant yet lived, but were nonetheless overjoyed to learn the truth, welcoming their poor unfortunate child back into their arms. They would all search each other's faces for signs of familial resemblance - she'd have her mother's hair and cheekbones, perhaps, and her father's eyes...

Claudia - now donning her wet but clean clothes, as she didn't have time to let them sit and dry - was yanked out of her fantasy by a sudden noise from the nearby trees. A quick glance showed her all she needed to recognize the danger - two men on horseback, both wearing the unmistakeable uniform of the Bishop's Guard, were casually working their way downhill toward the water's edge. Praying they hadn't seen her yet - and now grateful her clothes had not yet dried after all - Claudia took a deep breath and scurried into the water, hiding herself beneath its surface.

Marcus Diamond and a second guardsman rode to the river's edge through all the weeds and rushes. Once they stopped, Marcus used the flat of his sword to beat at and search the overgrowth, turning to the second guardsman with a weary, irritated expression when nothing was revealed.

"I saw someone, Lieutenant," the man insisted. "I don't know where they could have gone."

Marcus, fully understanding how the man's eyes could have tricked him, merely dropped his reins and sat back in his saddle, sheathing his sword. It was nearly sunset now, after a full day of searching like their lives depended on it - too much longer at this, and they'd *all* be jumping at shadows.

The second guardsman, sensing that his commander shared his weariness, likewise shifted uncomfortably in his saddle, and didn't bother stopping his mount when it, like Marcus', began grazing on the flora at the water's edge. "Forgive me, Lieutenant, but - how much longer are we expected to search for one worthless thief, sir?'

Marcus just sighed in irritation. "Until Captain Sykes is satisfied that His Grace is satisfied. Anything less, and-"

The two men's voices, rendered barely intelligible, carried dimly to Claudia where she hid under the water. She was currently breathing only with the assistance of the hollow reed stalk she'd thought to grab, staring up at the foam threatening to drip down on her from the horses' mouths.

Really, Lord? Claudia thought with a flash of annoyance. Really?

As if in retribution for her complaint, the reed was suddenly jerked from between her teeth - one of the horses had torn it free as it pulled up a mouthful of the other rushes surrounding it. Startled and suddenly breathless, Claudia barely managed to prevent the gasp that would surely have filled her lungs with water. She clutched desperately at the reeds around her, trying to keep her body underwater against her brain's rising clamor to just break the surface and breathe.

"We'll all suffer if the Bishop remains displeased," Marcus Diamond said, still droning on somewhere up above the water, "even Captain Sykes, and I'm thinking he has more reasons than usual to avoid that. The man wants something, I can feel it..."

Claudia fought the urge to scream at the men to just go the hell away and move on - not that it would really do any good. Still, she was running out of air, and it felt like her lungs were going to burst any moment now...

It happened just as Marcus' horse plunged its muzzle into the water a second time, searching for another mouthful of rushes - instead of the anticipated treat, it got a violent spray of water to the face. The horse, understandably startled, lunged backward with a cry of alarm, nearly throwing Marcus off its back and into the water. Years of experience on horseback enabled the man to get his mount under control - barely - and he turned the animal back around to face the river's edge.

There before his disbelieving eyes stood the bedraggled and equally disbelieving figure of Joshua Donovan. Marcus, hardly able to fathom it, stared at his runaway Mouse until recognition and the resulting rage freed him from his paralysis.

Claudia recognized the Captain Of The Guard's right-hand man - known to her only as Marcus - and froze in fear. He was among the most brutal of the Bishop's Guard, both to herself and to others she witnessed him dealing with, and she'd taken a particular pleasure in making him look the fool as often as she could. It was a decision she kind of regretted at the moment...

The world spun back to its normal pace and rhythm as three things happened simultaneously.

The guardsman accompanying Marcus finally recognized Claudia as the escaped thief. "That's him!"

Claudia began trying to find the most likely escape route, automatically denying the guardsman's accusation. "No, it's not! I swear to God-!"

Marcus, completing the scene, finally drew his sword. "Don't just sit there - capture him!"

Claudia looked at her options, liked none of them, and tried to dive back into the river, but Marcus' henchman was there first, cutting her off and forcing her back to the shore. Marcus bore down on her as she attempted a desperate scramble up the river bank, and she shrieked hysterically as she watched the blade of his sword swing down to cut her in half.

Instead of cutting her, the flat of sword came down on her rump, as if she were some errant child being punished, and sent her sprawling onto the grass. She rolled over onto her back, staring up at Marcus in disbelief - the man loomed above her, grinning evilly.

Claudia suddenly understood - they were playing a game of cat and mouse, the better to humiliate her before bringing her back in.

Groaning inwardly at all the terrible puns the thought inspired, given her nickname, she forced herself to her feet and bolted up the hill, running at a speed only the threat of dying could pull from her. The bridge was just up ahead - all she had to do was reach that bridge, and she'd be okay somehow...

Her two would-be captors- easily able to outrun her on horseback - merely followed behind at an easy canter, content to let her exhaust herself. The sound of their mocking laughter at her back only made her push harder.

Her feet hit the top of the hill just as she began to think the incline was endless. Gasping for air, Claudia threw herself forward onto the bridge, putting on a fresh burst of speed at the suddenly flat terrain. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite enough to outdistance Marcus and his crony, the clattering of their horses' hooves only seconds behind her.

Making the mistake of risking a glance backward to see just how close they were - never say never, after all - she failed to notice the loose board until it snagged her foot. Pitching forward, she landed prone on the planks of the bridge, the last of her breath knocked out of her.

There was truly nothing to do but wait there for Marcus' sword to fall - either to kill her or to knock her unconscious and bring her back to Aquila - and she simply lay there, waiting. Absolutely nothing happened, though - no moment of blinding pain to signal the end of life and freedom - only an uncanny silence that stretched on and on and on interminably, until she finally dared raise her head to see what in the name of God had just happened.

A multicolored blur, vaguely canine in shape, leapt over her as she did so. It was no longer in her line of sight after that, but the growling from somewhere near her feet told her it was still there, and very much the dog she'd believed it to be.

The dog, while certainly fearsome and startling, turned out to be far from the most intimidating thing on that bridge. Daring an upward glance, Claudia found herself in front of a huge black warhorse - its steel-shod hooves and muscular forelegs were alarmingly close to her head, actually, and she froze again lest she provoke the beast somehow.

The massive hooves shifted slightly, even as wisps of white mist rolled from the beast's muzzle into the chill air. The dark equine eyes that met Claudia's seemed to have an almost human intelligence and suspicion behind them - Claudia thought for a stunned moment that the thing was easily the most beautiful, impressive beast she'd ever seen, then quickly diverted her attention back to the present as she caught sight of the black-clad legs pressed to its sides.

Claudia climbed to her feet slowly - ever so slowly, once she noticed the fierce hunting hawk perched on the unknown rider's vambrace - but not slowly enough to keep from upsetting the bird, which screeched and hissed at her as it mantled its wings threateningly.

"Easy there," Claudia began, but broke off suddenly at the sight of the figure on the horse's back - the one clearly controlling dog, hawk, and horse simultaneously.

The looming, hooded figure - gender indeterminate under its armor but intimidating all the same - was dressed and armored all in black, and could only be one of the Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse mentioned in the Bible. The black cloak surrounding the figure was lined in a fiery red, shifting like some kind of infernal flame as the rider moved in the saddle to eye Claudia.

The rider's face did nothing to help determine their gender - the strong but finely chiseled features could belong to man or woman, with equally impressive effect - but Claudia finally decided to simply consider the stranger a man until told otherwise. It was just easiest that way.

The man, then, had a large gleaming broadsword in his free hand, and the eyes staring them all down were as black and cold as night, or Death itself. Claudia had to check again just to be certain she hadn't imagined those eyes being so dark they were quite literally almost black - after that, she figured it was probably a good idea to see what had her pursuers so quiet, and looked back over her shoulder at them.

Marcus and his fellow guardsman sat still and quiet on their own horses, as if rooted by the same awe and dread that had captured Claudia. Their mounts, despite the depth of their training, pranced back and forth restlessly, seeming for all the world as if they, too, understood the threat posed by the strange man in black and his two... pets.

Finally, Marcus was able to throw off his paralysis, slipping back into the authoritative demeanor of a Lieutenant as if he'd never unwittingly abandoned it. "Clear the bridge, stranger. We have no quarrel with you."

The man in black made no response, merely continuing to sit quietly on his horse. The dog, however, seemed affronted that Marcus had dared to address its master, raising its hackles and growling in an odd sort of harmony with the wind currently rising off the trees - at least until that master called it back with a whistle, and it retreated to sit beside Claudia, calm but watchful.

Marcus tried again, raising his voice slightly. "This boy is an escaped prisoner. We've been tasked with returning him to his cell."

The stranger tilted his head to the side speculatively, then finally spoke. "On whose authority?"

Something about that smooth voice - still neither discernibly male nor female - with its smooth British accent seemed to unnerve Marcus. "The authority of His Grace, the Bishop Of Aquila."

Only Claudia seemed to note the peculiar, fleeting twitch at one corner of the stranger's mouth that might have been a smile. A moment later, the black charger lunged forward, the hawk rose shrieking into the air, and the dog began growling again - that smile she'd noted was the only thing that allowed Claudia to move aside before she got trampled under those massive hooves.

The next part happened so quickly that Claudia could barely follow it.

First, Marcus' companion charged forward with a cry to stop the man in black, military-issue sword raised to cut him down. The stranger's black charger reared - deadly and majestic - and carried its own rider forward to cut the guard down instead. One deadly sweep of that huge broadsword - right through the ribcage - sent the guard tumbling off his horse and over the edge of the bridge, his scream echoing as he plummeted into the river below them.

Before that guard had even hit the water, though, the stranger had already turned on Marcus, knocking the Lieutenant from his horse in one smooth, practiced motion. Marcus crumpled to the planks of the bridge with an ugly thud, then tried to rise again, only to find the man in black looming over him, the point of his sword digging into Marcus' vulnerable throat.

Marcus swallowed hard, staring up at his death with eyes so wide the whites were visible all around. Then the dying light flashed off something on the stranger's hand - a small gold and ruby ring, it looked like - and Marcus somehow managed to turn even paler as he recognized its source.

"Return to your Captain," the man in black ordered Marcus, tone no less deadly for its eerie calmness. "Tell Walter Sykes that Charles de Navarre is back, and that I'm coming for him."

Marcus just nodded - still looking between the man in black's face and the ring on the man's hand - and Claudia felt a moment of smug vindication at seeing him on the verge of passing out from fear. Finally, he staggered to his feet, somehow managed to mount his equally fearful horse, and galloped off into the twilight.

The man in black - Navarre, Claudia reminded herself - watched silently until Marcus was out of sight, then calmly remounted his charger. The hawk spiraled down out of the sky again and returned to its master, settling on Navarre's wrist almost the moment the man was seated in the saddle, and the dog just sat quietly off to the side, panting happily as if it had merely been out for an evening romp.

Navarre sat atop his stallion a moment, gazing curiously down at Claudia, like the thief posed some sort of new riddle or puzzle to solve. Then the man nudged the horse forward towards Claudia, who still stood exactly where she'd landed when fleeing the beast's hooves just moments before.

Shaking herself out of her daze, Claudia pulled herself up to her full height, unimpressive though it was. "That was amazing, my lord! I had it all under total control, of course, but I'll never argue with that kind of help!"

Navarre didn't believe a word of it, continuing to stare down at Claudia with a disturbingly cryptic smile. "You're an escaped prisoner from Aquila? Not from the dungeons, surely..."

"Why not?" Claudia shot back, feeling vaguely annoyed at being underestimated. "I could do it."

"No one else ever has," Navarre replied calmly, with all the certainty of someone who knew *exactly* why that was.

Claudia raised her eyebrows, suddenly realizing that she might, in fact, have pulled off something truly remarkable for once in her short, nondescript life. Even so, she only shrugged noncommittally, not at all sure she wanted this Navarre fellow to think her capable of anything extraordinary.

Navarre continued eying Claudia thoughtfully until he caught sight of the sun setting behind the hills in the west, face suddenly grim and tight. Prodding the charger with his spurs, the man started moving across the bridge again, passing Claudia with such apparent disinterest, despite everything, that she might as well have been invisible.

Startled, and annoyed, Claudia reached out, not quite daring to lay a hand on beast or rider. "Sir? Sir, wait..."

When Navarre did not deign to respond, Claudia trotted after him. "Look, I've been thinking of finding myself a traveling companion-"

There was still no response to or acknowledgment of her words, and a note of desperation crept into Claudia's voice. "The woods are crawling with guards! You're gonna need someone to watch your back!"

Navarre just rode on into the growing darkness without looking back, and Claudia ran after him until she realized the futility of it and just stopped in the road, hands at her side.

"Jackass much," she muttered in irritation, before turning to walk back to the bridge. An odd ache she couldn't quite name filled her chest - it had been nice to have a defender, if only for a few minutes - but she squashed it down and blocked it from her thoughts.

Spying the corpse of the guard that Navarre had killed, Claudia felt a twinge of sympathy. "Sorry, guy. You were way outclassed there..."

Smiling with a mixture of gratitude and regret, she couldn't keep herself from taking one final look back the way Navarre had gone.

Then, as darkness descended, she walked on across the bridge to the dead guard's horse, taking the money pouch from its saddle and rifling through saddlebags that held nothing truly useful.

Claudia glanced back again at the guard's corpse, jingling the money pouch a little. "You'll thank me for this later. You know - camel through the eye of a needle, rich man, kingdom of heaven, and all that..."

"Don't mention it," she called back airily as she started off to find shelter for the night.


	5. Chapter Four

The rain returned during the night, echoing Claudia's strangely forlorn mood and making her wonder if two seemingly endless years of drought might possibly have come to an end just to increase her misery.

She spent another cold, wet night in a tree, too scared to trust showing her face at an inn after her close call earlier. She slept only fitfully, lost in dreams of a magnificent warrior in black - at least, when the lightning and thunder didn't yank her right out of them so suddenly she couldn't move or breathe for several long heartbeats.

Once or twice, dream and reality melded so seamlessly for those few heartbeats that she could have sworn that it was not thunder but a war horse's defiant scream that woke her, and that she even saw that horse, riderless, rear up on a distant hilltop before bolting away into the storm.

By dawn, fortunately, nothing remained but the vague dread left behind after a night full of bad dreams, easily shaken off as Claudia climbed out of her tree and set off further into the hills. She was out into the foothills now, far enough out that she hoped she might finally be able to permanently elude the Bishop's Guard.

The terrain roughened as she scrambled up and down muddy hills, making her way through brush and fallen leaves painted in all the colors of autumn. It was pretty in its own way, but she didn't dare let herself be distracted by it, needing to stay alert for any sign of pursuit.

Knowing why the Bishop's Guard was so focused on taking her back in explained a lot, but made her no less willing to oblige them. Still, despite all her caution, Claudia never even noticed when the rider in black from the previous night appeared on a ridge behind her just after dawn, nor did she even realize that he followed her all through the morning.

Eventually, Claudia reached a tiny village tucked away in a narrow mountain valley. The farming here seemed to be even less fruitful than the barren fields surrounding Aquila - the village was a pretty dismal collection of mudbrick-and-plaster houses squeezed behind a crumbling stone wall, and the mere sight of the place was enough to convey the poverty of those who lived there.

Claudia, tucked away behind a ramshackle shed near the crumbling outer wall, reasoned that they were still better off than she was, at least for the moment. It had to be noon by now, and the village looked nearly empty - unlike her, most of the inhabitants were indoors, nominally warm and dry as they enjoyed a meal she could have none of.

The thought of food - even the mediocre sort likely to be found here - made Claudia's empty stomach ache and her throat tighten, but she pushed all that aside as best she could. If the townsfolk were all mostly indoors - unlike her cold, miserable self - then now was the perfect time to grab some warmer clothes, or at least some that were in better shape than her own.

She spotted a pair of leather boots, left sitting on a doorstep to dry, and darted from her hiding spot to grab them, though she still felt a little guilty about taking anything from such an obviously poor village. "Well, it *is* more blessed to give than to receive..."

Safely hidden again, Claudia yanked off the remains of her old soft-soled shoes and tugged the boots onto her feet. Her feet felt warmer in just the time it took to lace the footwear tightly enough to keep it securely in place, and she smiled happily.

She was Claudia the Mouse, better known as Joshua the Mouse, the only person to have ever escaped the dungeons of Aquila. This sort of thing was mere child's play to her.

Making a sort of game out of it all helped her set her lingering guilt aside to do what had to be done. She dashed at breakneck speed into another nearby yard, yanking a hooded woolen tunic from the clothesline there even as she passed over a pair of pants in about as bad a shape as her own.

The tunic proved to be as gloriously warm as it looked once she pulled it on. It engulfed her tiny frame, but she didn't really care - easy enough to roll up the sleeves to leave her hands free as she continued moving along the edge of the village.

At another house - in such ramshackle state that she wasn't sure whether it was still being built or merely collapsing - she spotted a workable pair of pants hanging from another clothesline. Creeping into the yard, she paused to get a better look before opting to take them after all - the pants weren't the best pair she'd ever seen, but they would do nicely enough for now.

The smell of food and woodsmoke drifted across the air suddenly, and Claudia glanced around until she spotted its source - a rundown little tavern sat between two of the houses, smoke wafting from its chimney. Pausing only long enough to change into the pants she'd just stolen, she raced down the street in search of food and warmth.

Quite a few of the villagers sat out in the tavern's unimpressive courtyard, enjoying the crisp weather before it turned truly cold and they found themselves confined indoors. They ate and drank together at wooden tables scattered about the yard, staying as close as possible to the blissfully warm fire that took some of the chill from the air as it blazed in a central fire pit.

Claudia glanced surreptitiously from face to face as she entered that courtyard - it was still somewhat risky to stop there, and she needed to be cautious. The patrons, though, seemed oddly subdued, expressions ranging from indifferent to grumpy or just plain mean - even the barmaid, who might have been pretty enough otherwise, had a sullen expression fixed on her face as she silently waited tables.

Just beyond the courtyard walls, Claudia noted, there was a blacksmith working away at a stable forge - good to know, she supposed, but not of particular interest to her just then.

The patrons continued carrying on their halfhearted conversations, not even looking up as Claudia walked by - in fact, none of them showed the slightest interest at all in her or her newly-acquired clothes that should have been familiar to someone there.

Claudia was just relieved at first - they were leaving her alone to go about her business, after all - but being ignored began to prick at her ego as the minutes ticked by. They might not know who she was or the impressive feat she had pulled off, but she was hardly invisible, and there was no way this tiny village got so many strangers that one more was simply unremarkable.

Feeling an impulsive need for at least a little acknowledgment, Claudia pulled out the money purse she'd consolidated everything into and dropped it on the table in front of her as the sullen barmaid walked by. "A mug of your best, my lady, and the same for anyone willing to join me in a toast!"

That garnered her some attention, as all the patrons turned to glance at her in curiosity. It didn't last, though, as they all turned back to their previous conversations a moment later.

The barmaid returned then - still looking every bit as sullen - and set a heavy earthenware mug down in front of Claudia, who made a face as she sipped at it cautiously. "Not much to recommend it, huh?"

The barmaid didn't even crack the hint of a smile. She just shrugged and continued on her rounds without any comment at all, and Claudia began to wonder a little anxiously if something was wrong with the town itself. What if it had been cursed somehow?

"I'll hear your toast, little man," a voice said suddenly behind Claudia. The accent was odd, perhaps Russian, though she couldn't be sure.

Claudia turned to look at the speaker just as he stood up and began to move towards her. The man was imposingly muscled - probably a requirement of the Bishop's Guard or something - with curly brown hair, a prominent nose, and an overall surly-looking disposition. He was also wearing a heavy cloak that Claudia envied a little, given her own current lack of one.

"Well," Claudia said, unable to back out of the corner her own recklessness had cast her into, "we're drinking to a very special kind of guy. One who's been inside the dungeons of Aquila and made it back outside to tell the tale."

The Russian stranger smiled at her, and the effect was far from pleasant. "Then you drink to me. My name is Ivan, and I've seen those dungeons many times."

Claudia looked the man over, noted again the same sturdy frame and well-developed muscles, and grinned at what she could only assume was a joke. "Lemme guess. Blacksmith? Woodsman? Stonecutter? Definitely not a prisoner..."

"I never said I was a prisoner," Ivan replied, before reaching up to unhook his cloak and toss it aside. Underneath was the unmistakable black and crimson uniform of the Bishop's Guard, and Claudia's heart sank down into her stomach.

Claudia froze, despite her best intentions, as man after man began to rise from the tables and remove their own cloaks to reveal the same uniform. Suddenly, the strange behavior of the villagers made perfect sense - they were clearly as terrified as she was - but the realization was too late to do her any good.

More than a dozen guards had come forward now to surround her, all silently drawing their swords, and Claudia cursed her own foolishness under her breath. Things went from bad to worse as she watched Lieutenant Marcus Diamond rise from playing dice near the fire pit, accompanied by none other than Captain Walter Sykes himself.

"You might actually have made it, Mouse, if you'd stuck to the woods a little longer," Sykes said amiably, though his cold eyes gave his friendly tone the lie.

Claudia had limited options - bluff, fight, or run - so she opted to start with the one she was best at. "I know, right? The thing is, I was actually *trying* to find you guys - I have some information I thought you might want. One of your men got killed last night. I saw it happen, so I can tell you the name of his killer, and I thought you might consider that worth a pardon."

Sykes exchanged glances with Marcus, and Claudia's heart sank again as she realized that Marcus had probably already reported everything he'd seen and left her nothing to bargain with. Then Sykes looked over to Ivan. "Kill the thief."

Ivan didn't hesitate, drawing his sword even as he lunged at Claudia. Okay, then, running it was...

Claudia tossed her mugful of ale into Ivan's eyes as he came at her, before diving under the nearest table and slipping away amongst the villagers' legs like her namesake.

Several of the guards rushed the table and flipped it over, not caring about the villagers who ended up wearing their precious food and drink, or how much the broken dishes and pitchers would cost the tavern's owner. Some of the villagers even got knocked from their seats, and all for nothing - there was no one under that table anymore.

"There he is," Ivan shouted, all eyes drawn to where he now pointed. Claudia dashed out from her hiding spot behind a man at the next table over - and right into the waiting arms of another guard.

"Got you, you bastard," the guard crowed, though Claudia was making him work to hang on to her. Finally, she got an arm free - after that, she planted a well-aimed elbow in the guard's face, breaking away to disappear back under the tables.

The guards lost all semblance of order at that point, randomly flipping over tables, chairs, and benches in their anger as they spread out across every corner of that courtyard. Some of the patrons screamed in fright and others shouted in protest, but none were allowed to leave - any who tried were forced back into a far corner of the yard lest Claudia somehow manage to leave with them.

After the initial burst of chaos subsided, however, it was perfectly clear that Claudia Donovan - Joshua Donovan the Mouse, to the Bishop's Guard - was nowhere to be found.

A deadly silence fell then, as Sykes' deadly cold gaze swept from one terrified face to another. That silence was broken by a single loud and unrelentingly shrill scream as the sullen barmaid finally found her voice - knowing her cover was blown, Claudia darted out from her hiding place behind the woman's voluminous skirts.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Claudia gasped out, needlessly apologizing to the affronted young woman. Looking left and right, she surveyed the gauntlet of guards standing between herself and the courtyard gates. This was it, then - one final attempt at running before fighting became all she had left.

Pulling her dagger just in case - she was pretty sure she was a dead woman if they caught her, whether or not she'd tried to use lethal force - she threw herself back into the panicking, chaotic crowd, praying it was large enough to cover her push toward the gate and the freedom that lay beyond it.

Once Sykes realized Claudia's plan and worked out her most likely path, he began calmly moving to intercept her, making his way through the tavern patrons as steadily and unerringly as any natural-born predator. One of the guards caught up with the prisoner as Sykes approached, wrenching the thief around - the motion also swung the boy's dagger hand around in a wide arc, an arc destined to connect with Sykes' own face as the tip of the blade raked over the Captain's unprotected cheek.

Sykes froze in place as a combination of surprise and rage poured through him, face reflecting every bit of that dangerous combination. Blood, warm and wet, trickled down his cheek from the burning gash, and he raised a hand slowly to wipe the blood away, its presence on his fingers as he stared at them confirmation that the injury was real.

Claudia sagged helplessly against the guard now holding her, aghast at the accidental wound she'd inflicted, and knowing exactly what fate it had bought her. A useless apology tumbled repeatedly from her lips, words running together in her fear. "I'msorryi'msorryi'msorry..."

Sykes, unmoved, just gestured to his men. Two of them joined the one already holding Claudia, and she found herself pushed up against one of the poles supporting the roof, arms pinned behind her as one of the men raised his broadsword over her head. Sykes merely grinned coldly, lifting a hand into the air.

Claudia shut her eyes and lifted her face to the sky, the only prayer she could think of now flowing past her lips. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me-"

The twang of a crossbow, followed by the whir of a flying bolt, interrupted Claudia's recitation. She opened her eyes just in time to see the crossbow bolt embed itself deeply into the arm of the guard standing over her with the sword, and fought not to cheer aloud as that guard cried out in pain and dropped his sword to the ground.

"Sykes!" The voice belonged to Navarre, the mysterious rider in black from last night, and Claudia couldn't fathom what he could possibly be doing there. Or why the anger in that voice made her think of every Bible verse she'd ever been quoted about the wrath of God...

Sykes stiffened, either in fear or surprise, as he seemingly also recognized the voice calling his name. He turned slowly, almost casually, and his men did the same, trained to respond swiftly to any threat to their commander.

Navarre stood at the entrance to the courtyard like some avenging angel made flesh. He was all in black, just like the day before, and held his gleaming broadsword in his right hand. His left cradled a loaded crossbow, the same one that he'd already shown such skill in using.

Sykes' eyes widened - again, either in fright or in surprise - as they took Navarre in and confirmed what Sykes' ears had already told him. Claudia, for her part, simply sank to the ground as all three guardsmen let her go at once, too stunned to remember to hang on to her. The tavern courtyard had gone deathly still and quiet, no one daring to move or make a sound until the standoff was somehow resolved.

"One of my men said that you'd returned to the area," Sykes said at length, not bothering to disguise the contempt in his voice. "I could only assume he was mistaken, or lying, since I know you aren't that stupid."

Sykes dared a quick glance at Marcus. "You have my apologies, Marcus. I should not have doubted your word."

Marcus, not quite sure how to respond, merely nodded, accepting the return of his previous standing among the men. It hardly seemed like the time or place to do anything else.

Silence returned after that, hanging in the air as both Sykes and Navarre apparently waited on the other to make the first move or speak the first word. Claudia eyed the courtyard as covertly as she could, trying to work out if she could somehow use the situation to cover her escape.

There looked to be a reasonably clear path to the gate now that all of Sykes' men had shifted positions to better focus on the threat to their Captain. After one last glance around, Claudia finally decided to risk it, sidling slowly away from the frozen guards next to her.

The slow series of movements didn't recapture the attention of those guards, but it certainly caught Navarre's eye, and Claudia froze as his voice rang out, addressing her. "You. Boy. Get out of here - now."

Claudia stood rooted for a long moment, unable to immediately comprehend that the order was meant for her. Navarre, exasperation flitting across his face, merely eyed Claudia then jerked his head to indicate the space behind him. "Move, boy."

That - and the realization that all eyes were slowly turning back to her - freed Claudia from her paralysis. "Gladly, sir," she told Navarre, racing as quickly across the courtyard as she could.

To her amazement, not one person in that yard tried to stop her dash toward Navarre, though any of them easily could have. As Claudia raced past her unlikely savior, disbelief turned into gratitude, and she whispered a heartfelt blessing as she moved into the safety of the road. "Thank you, sir. May God protect you."

The courtyard slowly came back to life after that.

The villagers began to stir, muttering animatedly amongst themselves about what they'd just witnessed, and began eying the dozen or so guards that had just seemingly been defeated by a single man with one sword and one crossbow.

The guards began looking around at the villagers nervously, as all that muttering started to take on an angry tone, but everyone seemed content to stay where they were and the men returned their attention to their Captain.

One or two of the guards, however, began to whisper amongst themselves, repeating yet again the fervently held belief that their *true* Captain - the one they'd loved and admired - would return and take bloody vengeance on their current one.

A quick glance around forced that whisper back into silence, however, as those men realized that most of their supposed comrades were loyal to Marcus and to Sykes, and would happily use the chaos of a fight as cover to dispatch any guard siding with a threat to their own comfort and standing.

Oblivious to all of it, Sykes and Navarre simply continued their standoff...


	6. Chapter Five

Navarre stood still as an obsidian statue, interposing himself between the thief and the rest of the yard as the boy fled on his orders. Once the boy was safely past him and hopefully running through the village as fast as his legs would carry him, he shifted his attention to Sykes.

"Eyes on me, Sykes," he called out, and the other man, previously watching the boy flee, turned his gaze back to Navarre. Those cold blue eyes nonetheless burned with a deadly hatred.

It was almost as strong as the hatred in Navarre's own eyes as he stood gazing upon the man who had stolen everything of value from him. Walter Sykes - Sykes the sadistic bully, Sykes the willing lackey of the Bishop Of Aquila - had claimed the life that Navarre had sweated and bled for, and then used that power to help destroy anything that had ever held any meaning for Navarre.

Finally, Navarre spoke again. "I promised God that my face would be the last thing you ever see - and I always keep my promises."

As he lifted and aimed his crossbow, however, a guard leapt to his feet from behind one of the overturned tables and fired his own equally deadly weapon. Navarre, catching the action in his peripheral vision, turned and fired in one smooth motion - the guard's quarrel missed him, whooshing by mere inches from his face, but his own bolt did not miss. The guard fell back behind the table with a cry of pain.

Navarre spun back to find Sykes again, only to find himself face-to-face with another guard, one he knew. The guard - a good man named William Wolcott, one of the ones praying for Navarre's return - raised his sword uncertainly, unable to disguise the mix of joy, trepidation, and regret in his eyes as he pointed it at his former Captain. "Forgive me, my Captain..."

Then Wolcott's eyes widened in confusion as he caught sight of the ruby and gold ring on Navarre's right hand, gaze flying from it to Navarre's face as he had some sort of revelation. "Hel-?"

Wolcott's whispered question was cut off mid-syllable as Sykes' heavy boot slammed viciously into his back, impaling Wolcott on Navarre's sword before anything could be done to stop it.

Navarre eased Wolcott to the ground, risking being overrun to see if the man might yet be saved. Navarre's black eyes filled with rage as he realized there was nothing to be done, but his murmured words were gentle as he reached out to close his old friend's eyes. "Forgive *me*, dear Wolly..."

Navarre's voice was buried beneath the sound of Sykes roaring out the order to attack as he leapt back out of the reach of Navarre's sword. Every last one of his men obeyed, shaking off their paralysis and rushing toward the figure in black threatening their commander - none of them dared balk, especially after what Sykes had done to Wolcott.

Navarre, still boiling over with rage, drew on that anger as he began fighting with the single-minded intensity of a man possessed - as if this one fight were the very thing he'd lived his entire life for. Even with the almost inhuman edge that gave his reflexes, he was one man with a single sword, attempting to hold his own against nearly a dozen men.

The guards pressed Navarre hard, surrounding him on all sides and blocking any potential path of retreat as they drove him back through the crowd of panicked villagers towards the fire pit. Navarre did not go quietly, though, and another guard - one of Sykes' cronies - fell as Navarre ran him through.

Sparks flew as steel met steel, swords clanging as they clashed - Navarre's sword arm began to ache from the shock of the seemingly endless blows, but his skill and strength never once faltered. He gave ground slowly, and at a heavy price, and, one by one, the numbers against him began to dwindle.

Sykes, though, was a man equally possessed. His own private nemesis had returned, and in so doing, had set free the prisoner whose life Sykes sensed was worth more to the Bishop than his own. Navarre had returned, hellbent on reclaiming everything that had been taken from him and his - Sykes' worst nightmare come true - and Sykes felt a sour mixture of fear and hatred churn in his gut.

Determined to end the threat once and for all, Sykes pushed forward through the crowd to where his men had Navarre cornered against the edge of the fire pit.

Navarre turned to see Sykes as he approached, nothing but death in his eyes. Without even taking his eyes off the Captain, Navarre ran another man through on instinct and muscle memory alone, then shoved the corpse in Sykes' direction as he yanked it off his sword. Letting momentum carry the action, Navarre swung his sword at Sykes' head, a single blow to either side of the white and gold Captain's helm.

Sykes flinched at both blows, surprise filling his expression when the blade merely glanced off the helm. Then the golden wing-like faceguard attached to the helm - the symbol of the Captain Of The Guard - fell to the ground, and Sykes' face filled with fury as he realized how deeply Navarre had just insulted him.

There was a flash of red and gold as Navarre moved to swing his sword again, and anger changed to disbelief as Sykes finally caught a good look at the ring on the man's sword hand. Disbelief dropped away to a self-satisfied smirk as he took a very close and careful look at his opponent - the shape of the hands, the slope of the cheekbones, the curve of the lips - and suddenly understood what had startled poor Wolcott so.

Here was a prize worth more than a hundred Joshua Donovans...

Navarre, misinterpreting Sykes' scrutiny, merely smiled grimly in response as he continued his fight. Finally clearing some space in which to maneuver, Navarre reached around to snatch a flaming branch from the fire, startling them all by driving it directly at Sykes' smirking face.

Sykes made an ill-executed leap to the side, then lost his balance and fell against the fire. Some of the guards rushed to his side, dragging him away from the fire and beating out the flames on his cloak - in the confusion, Navarre seized upon the guards' momentary lapse in attention and began a fresh push toward the courtyard gates.

Still fleeing down the muddy street, Claudia shoved herself off of the wall supporting her and forced herself back into motion - trembling with shock and exhaustion, she forced her leaden feet to continue stumbling along as quickly as they could carry her.

She risked a glance back at the tavern as she ran, not yet able to fully comprehend this second unlooked-for rescue, or the fact that none of the guards appeared to be chasing her yet. Blundering around a blind corner, Claudia suddenly found herself surrounded by horseflesh - she'd somehow wandered right into the middle of the horses the guardsmen had hidden earlier to avoid being spotted.

Skidding to a stop, staying upright only by sheer force of will, Claudia realized that riding would be infinitely faster than running, especially in her present condition. Stealing one of these horses would improve her odds of escaping immeasurably...

The problem was that horses terrified her - she'd never ridden one in her life. Even the smallest of the creatures in front of her seemed to loom larger than any of the well-muscled guardsmen she'd fled, and that was before even considering that the skittish creatures seemed to be as leery of her as she was of them.

Under normal circumstances, Claudia would never have even dreamed of doing something so insane as actually trying to ride one of them, but these were about as far from normal circumstances as it got. Untying the reins of the nearest horse with shaking hands, she grabbed hold of the saddle and tried to get her foot securely in the stirrup - the horse, sensing her apprehension, would have none of it, flattening its ears and shying away from her.

"Nice boy," Claudia murmured, trying unsuccessfully to calm the beast, "good boy..." The horse, unconvinced, jerked back, yanking the reins from Claudia's hands, and then bolted away down the street.

Claudia shot an anxious look back toward the tavern. The air still rang with shouts, and screams, and clanging metal, so the fight was clearly not yet over - was it possible that Navarre was single-handedly holding off the entire company of guards?

For one insane moment, it occurred to her that she should probably go back and try to help the man who had so generously saved her life twice now. The next moment brought a return to sanity, as Claudia realized that any attempt on her part to help was both suicidal and absurd, likely to just make things worse for her strange defender.

Steeling her resolve, Claudia untied the next horse and jammed a foot into its stirrup - she would have done a passable job of mounting it, too, had she noticed the dangling cinch strap so she could fix it. Instead, the unsecured saddle slid off the horse under Claudia's weight and crashed to the ground at her feet. Cursing under her breath with both frustration and embarrassment, Claudia forced herself to try the next nearest horse...

Back in the tavern courtyard, Navarre slashed with his sword yet again, blow landing on his target's sword arm and sending a gout of blood flying along with the man's sword. His own body stung all over from similar cuts, though none of them were serious. The injuries, plus exhaustion, were combining to slow his response time, but only several more feet and two equally wounded and exhausted guards stood between him and freedom.

He pressed his attack with a renewed vigor, born of knowing victory was so close at hand, pushing his way to the gate. Sykes was still very much alive, unfortunately, but Navarre had done what he'd come to do, the truly important thing he could not afford to fail at - he had saved the young thief who had escaped from Aquila.

Navarre knocked the final guard aside with the flaming brand still held in his off hand, then sprinted out into the street. He almost groaned aloud when, tracking a riderless horse that ran by, he saw the young thief still in plain sight just a little way down the street.

The boy stood in the midst of a milling herd of the guardsmen's horses, trying in vain to catch one after another. He looked over to see Navarre watching him, then turned and ran as his expression filled with dismay.

Swearing under his breath as deftly as any sailor or soldier, Navarre raced over to his own stallion and vaulted smoothly into the saddle. The hawk, waiting on the saddlebow, spread its wings and leapt into the air with an annoyed cry, while the dog stretched lazily and waited for its master to begin moving.

Yanking the charger's head around a touch harder than he meant to - and apologizing for it under his breath - Navarre galloped down the street toward the boy. Behind him, one of the guards in the courtyard blew a loud warning call on a horn - Navarre simply stared ahead, mouth tightening, knowing exactly what that blast meant. That bloody idiot of a thief was running headlong into another trap.

The town wall suddenly loomed ahead of Navarre, the boy not very far in front of him as the hapless wretch tried to escape on foot. The town gate at the end of the street currently lay open, but the guards stationed there had heard the blast - they began to push the gate shut even as Navarre watched.

Navarre urged the stallion on to even greater speed, rapidly bearing down on the boy. The boy, hearing them approach, looked back as he ran, face becoming a mask of panic and terror as he wailed in fear. "No, no, no!"

Horses' hooves suddenly rang out from behind Navarre - guards mounting up finally and joining the pursuit, no doubt. Glancing back, Navarre saw Ivan and another guard slip to the front of the group, riding hard after their quarry.

Navarre looked forward again, just in time to get a perfect view of the gate slamming closed. Taking only a second to plan the maneuver, Navarre reached down and scooped up the running thief with one arm. The boy's meager weight barely strained his arm as he tossed the boy across the front of the saddle like a sack of grain and touched silver spurs to the charger's flanks.

The stallion's heavy muscles shifted and bunched as it gathered its strength and leapt effortlessly into the air - the beast cleared the gate as if it possessed wings and landed gracefully at a run on the other side. One of the guards watching the gate tried to lunge at them as they flew past, but Navarre simply reached out and smashed the man in the face with a perfectly aimed fist.

After a few feet, Navarre finally dared a glance back, as he tried to steady the boy's squirming body with one hand - it was hard not to smile a little as he watched Ivan and his fellow guard clear the gate with significantly less grace and poise.

Catching up the sling hanging from the charger's saddle and thrusting a stone into it, Navarre whirled the weapon over his head and let the stone fly. It caught Ivan's companion squarely in the head, knocking him off his horse and removing him from the chase - Ivan, however, was still closing fast, and the awkward weight of its two passengers was beginning to slow Navarre's stallion despite its best efforts.

Navarre, trying to formulate a plan, glanced up into the sky. The hawk still wheeled through the air it had taken to after being disturbed, its silhouette like a drawn crossbow, and Navarre called out to it as he had a sudden burst of inspiration. "Hoy!"

The bird, hearing its master's call, screeched its acknowledgment as it began to plummet through the air, talons flashing and glinting like tiny knives as it dove straight for Ivan. Ivan bellowed in alarm as he instinctively threw his arm up in front of him, but neither gesture did him much good - he was tossed from his saddle as his frightened mount reared, and ended up landing on the ground in a heavy, graceless sprawl. The hawk soared back into the skies with a cry of triumph, and Navarre rode on without even looking back.

Sykes, standing in the muddy street in front of the tavern, squinted from beneath singed eyebrows as he helplessly watched Navarre and Donovan both disappear into the forest. His face, streaked with soot, hardened into something approaching stone as he turned back to survey his remaining men - all were nursing wounds of their own, courtesy of Navarre, and not one of them would meet their Captain's eyes.

Sometime later, Claudia watched as Navarre's hawk circled lazily in the warm updrafts rising along with the mountain wall. The bird, though intimidating, was certainly beautiful - the long, sensitive primary feathers on her wingtips flared, twisted, narrowed again in time with the broad fan of her tail as she manipulated them all with the same delicate precision as the fingers on a human hand.

Far below the hawk, Navarre rode slowly along a ridgeline in the forest, surrounded by all the brilliant colors of autumn foliage. Claudia was perched behind him on the charger, not at all comfortable with any aspect of the arrangement.

The hawk, flying above them, studied the pair with its unreadable golden eyes for a good long while. Finally, satisfied with whatever her examination had revealed, she shifted her wings, increasing their drag until she began to drift lower and lower. She flared her wings once as she landed squarely on Navarre's vambrace-covered wrist, gazing up at him, and Navarre smiled faintly at her in return.

Navarre's dog, loyally keeping pace with its master as they rode, whined a little and gave a quiet bark, as if greeting a friend. Claudia couldn't help a small chuckle as the bird mantled again in response to the canine 'hello', and the dog turned its attention to her instead, eying her for a moment before greeting her as well with a brief tail wag.

Claudia peered past Navarre's shoulder, hoping a closer examination of the hawk might be just the distraction she needed to take her mind off being on horseback. Safe for the first time in days, with help almost too close at hand should she need it, there was nothing but time and peace and quiet in which to reflect on the current unexpected state of affairs.

Unfortunately, even with all Claudia had to be grateful for, the only thing that she seemed able to concentrate on was how much she still hated riding horses - she was reasonably fond of the charger, of course, seeing as it had helped save her life, but being stuck on its back was another thing entirely, and nigh intolerable at that.

Claudia had slipped in and out of a restless doze as they rode through the afternoon, waking with even the tiniest lurch, but it had done nothing to help the previously unknown form of motion sickness knotting her thankfully empty stomach. She had decided within the first hour or so that she was going to give up horses for Lent this year...

Turning back to studying the animals accompanying them, Claudia found her attention drawn most to the preening hawk. It was fine example of its species, from the subtle brown and olive shadings on its smoothly feathered back, to its soft breast streaked in shades of cinnamon, to its black-striped tail.

True, she was still a little afraid of its talons and sharp beak, but she was impressed in spite of that fear by the thing's beauty, and by its fierce loyalty to its master. Claudia knew little enough about the sport of hawking, but she knew enough to recognize the unusual lack of the jesses and straps that would normally keep the hawk close by and obedient.

The bird came and went as it pleased, never failing to return or to obey Navarre's commands.

"That's an amazing bird," Claudia observed finally, attempting conversation for the first time in what had to be hours - Navarre was a man of seemingly few words, and she'd tried to show her respect and gratitude by following his lead. "I could swear she went after those men all on her own..."

Navarre glanced back with a smile that was oddly wistful. "We've known each other for quite some time, she and I. I suppose you could say she feels a certain loyalty to me, and I to her."

The bird, apparently disliking being talked about as if invisible, glared at Claudia and hissed loudly, flaring her wings. Claudia was suddenly quite sure that the bird not consider itself Navarre's property in any way, that it considered itself an equal in their partnership - a partnership that it did not seem to feel any urge whatsoever to welcome Claudia into.

It was nicer to the damn dog than it was to her, at this point. And Navarre...

What about Navarre? Here was a man who dressed like someone in deep mourning and fought like an avenging angel straight from Heaven. He clearly had some bitter grudge against the Bishop Of Aquila and his Guard, but that wasn't quite enough to explain why he had risked his life on two separate occasions to save that of an escaped thief the Bishop's Guard happened to be hunting.

Once might have been simple chance - good luck and good timing, on Claudia's part - but not twice. Saving her twice, in two vastly different times and places, implied that Navarre had been actively keeping an eye on her. The thought was as unsettling as it was comforting.

Claudia cleared her throat, determined to get some answers. "Look, while we're on the subject - maybe you could explain the weird loyalty *you* seem to feel toward *me*?"

Navarre didn't respond or even look Claudia's way, but she pressed on anyway, needing an explanation. "I mean, I'm grateful and all - more than I could ever tell you - but you've gone out of your way to save my life twice now, and we both know I'm just street trash that made a lucky escape."

"You're not street trash," Navarre said sharply. "All life has value, regardless of the station it was born to."

That unexpected outburst was all Claudia was going to get, however, as Navarre fell silent again.

In truth, Navarre was simply lost in his own thoughts - thoughts about the truth and why he needed the odd bundle of contradictions that clung to him as they rode. He was weighing what he'd seen of the boy's true potential against the risks inherent in telling the boy the truth about what he'd stumbled into - the words to outline that truth rose up unbidden, driven by a sudden terrible need to share the burden of it with someone, anyone...

But not this one, Navarre reminded himself, at least not yet. However strong that desperate urge to share the story behind the hell that Navarre - along with those nearest and dearest - had been mired in for the last two years, the boy was an unknown quantity still.

The boy had shown a certain courage and spirit, yes, but the only thing that Navarre knew for certain was that the boy was a thief with a clever mind and cleverer tongue - he'd never even bothered to ask the boy's name, focused solely as he was on the boy's one extraordinary deed. Thwarting the Bishop's Guard had carried its own sort of pleasure, as had helping someone in need, but the reality was that Navarre knew better than to blindly trust someone so potentially untrustworthy as this young thief.

Still, Navarre could attest to the fact that not every criminal actually deserved the label - perhaps the boy deserved a chance to prove himself before being judged so harshly. The decision would have to be made quickly, as time was in short supply, but there was still time enough to do this thing properly - and if there wasn't, then it was best not done at all.

Navarre smiled as he finally spoke, though the boy couldn't see it. "Let's just say I chose to help you because I gave some consideration to what you told me on our first meeting - that I'm going to need someone to watch my back."

The young thief stiffened in surprise, and his voice when he responded held a certain note of pride. "I can definitely do that. You saw that wicked gash on Sykes' cheek, right?"

Navarre turned in the saddle so that he could see the boy's face. The boy merely grinned as he took the opportunity to bluster a bit in his own interest. "He was totally asking for it."

Black eyes turned oddly empty for a moment as Navarre thought of how much more Sykes deserved to suffer for all he'd done. Seeing the boy's proud expression, though, and the truth behind it, he merely nodded gravely, one fighter to another.

Then Navarre turned to face forward again, seeking to hide the unexpected smile that played at the edges of a bitter and tightly set mouth.


	7. Chapter Six

Ivan stood out on the road in front of the tavern, a hand pressed to his bandaged and aching head as he oversaw the guardsmen loading the bodies of their fallen comrades onto an ox-cart. It was a bloody and unpleasant business, made even more so by concerns over the potential threat posed by the still-agitated villagers.

Sykes, in as black a mood as anyone had ever seen, had started the long trek back to Aquila in order to give his report to the Bishop. Marcus, at the Captain's orders, had taken the mere handful of men left capable of riding and fighting and set off in pursuit of Donovan and the mysterious Navarre.

Ivan had been left in charge of the wounded and the dead, which he knew was not meant to be a complement to his perceived leadership skills.

He shouted to the driver, letting him know that the last body had finally been loaded - the driver cracked his whip and set the cart lumbering down the long road to Aquila. Watching the cart move down the street, Ivan noticed an unexpected figure moving in his direction.

The stranger was a fat, wheezing old man in the plain brown robes of a monk. He stopped to mutter a prayer as the cart rolled by him, then continued resolutely down the muddy street despite having clearly already overexerted himself. Ivan, figuring the man was harmless enough, just turned away and went off in search of his horse - he'd seen too much death and blood today to want anything to do with a holy man offering prayers for the dead.

The road was empty by the time the monk reached Ivan's previous spot, but the man stopped there anyway, wiping at his sweaty brow and gazing sadly at the ruined tavern courtyard. For a moment, guilt flared in his brown eyes, as if he were somehow to blame for the destruction and loss of life.

Shaking a head full of salt and pepper hair, he slipped a water skin from his shoulder and drank until he'd emptied it. Then he started toward the tavern itself, walking with the slow, heavy gait of a man who has walked too far carrying too large and heavy a burden.

The innkeeper who owned the tavern was currently on hands and knees in the courtyard, seeing what could be salvaged from the broken debris littering his place of business - there did not seem to be much reward for his efforts. The last bit of his patience fled as he heard dishes clanking behind him, and he started yelling as he turned to the source of the noise. "Get out of here, you damned vultures!"

Too late, he realized that he was addressing not a guard or a looter but a holy man of some sort, who looked to be very much in need of the large drink he'd poured himself. The innkeeper's face reddened with embarrassment as he apologized. "I'm sorry, Father. You wouldn't believe the kind of behavior this sort of mess brings on."

The monk seemed completely unruffled, even managing a tight smile. "It's Rabbi, my son, not Father, but the apology still stands well enough. Rumor has it a man named Charles de Navarre is responsible for all of this."

The innkeeper made a face, marveling at how quickly bad news traveled. "You could say that. You could also say he had a little help making this mess."

The Rabbi lifted his tankard and finished it off before speaking again, tone deceptively casual. "Did you happen to see what direction Navarre went? It's absolutely crucial that I find him and speak with him."

"I'll tell you what *I* noticed, Rabbi," the innkeeper said, temper flaring. "Swords, arrows, fire, blood, and dead bodies!"

He threw a broken plate against a wall as if to underscore his point, and watched it shatter. The Rabbi nodded slowly in understanding and sympathy before pouring and downing another tankard of ale.

Then he took a small money pouch off his belt and set it before the innkeeper. "It's not much, but it should help you start rebuilding - consider it an apology on behalf of Charles de Navarre and his friends."

The innkeeper hurried to whisk the money pouch out of sight, then suddenly looked trepidatious as the previous comment sank in. "Friends, Rabbi? What should I do if they come here?"

"Tell them I was here and am looking for them, if you'd be so kind," the Rabbi said as he began to walk toward the courtyard gate. "There won't be anything to worry about as long as the Bishop's Guard aren't here lying in wait."

The Rabbi stopped and turned just outside the gate. "Oh - and see if you can't use some of that money to buy some better ale..."

The innkeeper just shook his head and smiled despite himself.

Farther up in the hills, with sunset only a couple hours away, an isolated, rundown farm in one of the forest clearings found itself with a pair of unexpected visitors. The middle-aged couple trying to force a living out of the soil there looked up from their seemingly endless labors at the sound of hoofbeats to see a man and a boy ride into their yard on an enormous black horse.

The wife, busily attempting to sweep a cloud of dust out her front door with a ragged broom, merely stopped and stared before wiping her grimy brow with equally grimy hands. Her eyes narrowed as she studied the two riders - the armed man controlling the well-fed horse looked extremely dangerous, but he definitely did not look poor.

Decision made, she dropped the broom and dashed across the yard, calling shrilly to her husband. That husband was already studying the strangers for himself from where he stood beside the nearby barn, and he'd reached much the same conclusion.

The sickle the man had been sharpening still hung in his grasp, and his hands closed tighter around it as a certain hungry speculative filled his eyes. He absently ran a finger along the curve of the sickle's razor-sharp blade until a small line of blood formed on the fingertip - noting the injury, he put the finger in his mouth and sucked on it thoughtfully.

Claudia surveyed the property as Navarre reined in the horse, and did not like what she saw one bit. This was not the sort of place she'd pictured when Navarre had suggested they stop for the night - not this filthy yard with its rundown barn and tiny cottage with peeling paint and rotting thatch.

Still, any sort of human habitation at all - good, bad, or otherwise - was almost impossible to come by so far up into the hills. Everything Claudia knew about Navarre said that the man was as much a fugitive as she was - and probably for even longer - which meant that they had to take what they could get, at least for now.

Besides, after so many hours spent riding, Claudia would have stayed in the Aquila sewers themselves if it meant she could get off the damned horse.

Navarre made no comment on the farm or its owners, but Claudia eyed their prospective hosts warily as they came forward to greet the unexpected arrivals. She'd seen more than her share of people like these two - prematurely aged, bitter and greedy from a lifetime of hardship.

The man's thin frame was scrawny and bent from too many years of painful, backbreaking labor while on the verge of starving to death. His wife didn't appear to have fared any better - she was equally stooped and twisted, her face lined by her suffering, and her eyes seemed dull and dead. Yes, Claudia had seen many people like this couple - had taken to thieving to avoid becoming one of them.

Suddenly a tad self-conscious, Claudia adjusted her ill-fitting clothes to try and look like something a little better than an underfed thief.

Navarre swung down from the saddle with the ease of someone who'd spent most of their life on horseback. Claudia, not nearly so graceful, barely even managed to land on her feet, and to keep them once on the ground - she hurt in so many places now that the various aches and pains almost seemed to cancel each other out.

"Good afternoon," Navarre began, the soul of courtesy. "I fear I must impose upon you for shelter for the night. For myself, and my... comrade-in-arms."

Claudia beamed and straightened her shoulders just a tad more, tugging again at her too-large clothes, acutely aware of how dirty and unkempt she looked.

Neither the farmer nor his wife even noticed her attempts to neaten up. Their eyes were all for Navarre, as they tried to determine what sort of threat he might be, and how much being hospitable to him would cut into their own meager stores - not once did Claudia seem to factor into their considerations, and she felt oddly stung at being ignored.

"We don't have any food to spare," the farmer said finally. "But you and your boy can spend the night in the barn - for a price."

Claudia, unthinkingly falling into her life-long habit of doing whatever she could to diffuse such a dangerously tense situation, jingled her coin purse and smiled brightly. "That sounds fair. We've got coin - we can pay."

The gesture - meant to reassure the couple that they meant no harm or imposition - did not have anything near the effect Claudia had intended it to. Instead of acknowledging the agreement to their terms and relaxing, the farmer and his wife fixated on the money pouch with an unnerving intensity.

Belatedly, Claudia realized her mistake - an incredibly stupid one, for a thief - and hastened to tuck the money pouch away and out of sight.

Navarre glanced sharply between Claudia and the couple, then moved to block their view of the young thief. They backed away a step as Navarre raised an arm into the air and the hawk settled on his upraised wrist. "I believe providing the evening meal will be sufficient payment for the night's lodging."

With that, Navarre ordered the hawk off to hunt - within the hour, two freshly killed rabbits were roasting over a fire in the yard. It seemed to mollify the farmer and his wife - it would be plenty for all of them, even if they were all ravenous - but Navarre was still cagey enough to avoid entering the cottage, insisting that he preferred to eat outside where he could enjoy the weather. Claudia felt no need to argue - she was all too familiar with the dirt and vermin they would probably find inside.

The farmer and his wife unsuccessfully attempted to appear civil as they waited for the meat to cook, but Claudia didn't really care. She was too distracted - the scent of roasting rabbit was making her dizzy with hunger, and she wasn't sure how she was going to manage to make herself wait until everything had cooked.

Once the food was actually ready, though, it was depressingly easy to control herself. Their theoretical hosts elbowed both herself and Navarre out of the way in their rush for the food - they ate messily and loudly, more like wild animals than human beings.

Seeing that appalling display, Claudia forced herself to show some semblance of calm and composure while consuming her share. It wasn't as difficult as it would have been just a few weeks ago - her poor stomach had shrunken to the point by now that eating slowly was the only way to make sure everything stayed down.

Navarre - despite not having eaten all afternoon, even after his exertions at the tavern - merely picked at his food with disinterest, seeming more concerned with his hawk than what she'd brought him. The bird screeched suddenly, wings flaring restlessly as she stared at the setting sun - Navarre, hearing her, followed her gaze over to the horizon before tossing the bone in his hand to the dog and rising slowly to his feet.

Claudia glanced up as Navarre stood, and from the corner of her eye saw the farmer's bony hand snatch some of the meat off her plate. Turning back to the man, she merely shrugged off his ill manners with a certain casual arrogance. "Go ahead - I'm done. We always eat eat like this."

With the hawk and the dog to hunt for them, Claudia was pretty sure her statement would end up being true, and that added a certain conviction to her words. As if to underscore her lack of concern, she turned to look at Navarre, who was still standing there staring at the horizon.

Navarre's face - sunset and firelight giving it a ruddiness that belied its usual pallor - held the stark resignation of a man facing his own execution. There was also a profound sadness behind those dark eyes, and Claudia didn't know what to do with any of it. If Navarre was aware of her scrutiny, he didn't show it, merely walking past the fire and away from the group, becoming nothing but a black silhouette against the bloody rays of the setting sun.

Claudia, confused and concerned, just stared curiously after Navarre - this caused her to miss the farmer's speculative glance in her direction. They both missed it when the farmer looked back to Navarre, then over at his wife, whose face tensed as her husband gave her a barely perceptible nod.

Navarre, for his part, merely strode over to his horse as if completely alone and began to lead the beast into the barn - the charger protested a little at having its own meal interrupted but went without further complaint. Claudia watched them both as they walked, curiosity piqued when she saw Navarre surreptitiously pick a sunflower from among the weeds by the barn door.

Once he and the horse were safely inside the barn, away from prying eyes, Navarre began his habitual inventory of his saddlebags - they contained precious cargo above and beyond the normal supplies any traveler would need.

The light in the barn was dim, but it was enough to serve Navarre's purpose. Searching the saddlebags, his hands brushed across the smooth softness of cloth and the cold curve of burnished metal with the practiced ease of long familiarity.

Carefully pulling the cloth from the bag, Navarre shook it out and checked it over - it was a woman's gown of the finest light blue silk, painstakingly preserved, and for a moment he even fancied it still carried the scent of its owner.

The burnished metal proved to be a helm identical to the one worn by Walter Sykes - only in black and silver rather than white and gold. Unlike Sykes', however, Navarre's helm still had the faceguard that marked it as belonging to the Captain Of The Guard - a post that Navarre had once rightfully held with dignity and respect.

He stared at the gown and the helm for several long moments, lost in bittersweet memory, before looking up towards the setting sun - he couldn't see it, inside the barn, but after all this time he could certainly feel it.

"One day..." Navarre murmured to himself, but the vow was as much for *her* now as it had ever been for him. After so many sunsets, that promise - to right the terrible wrong done to them both, and to those they loved - was the only thing Navarre had left to carry him through the long dark night that lay ahead of him.

Tonight, though, as darkness approached, he needed more solace than the usual ritual could give him. A careful search through the same saddlebag produced another length of cloth, this one a deep royal blue and carrying another scent entirely. It had only ever been worn the once, but it had been the happiest occasion of the wearer's life...

Claudia, not feeling at all safe alone with the farmer and his wife, rose from her spot by the fire, abandoning whatever was left of the meal to the couple. Hoping that Navarre had had enough time to resolve whatever mood had driven him into the little solitude available, she decided to join him in the barn.

Navarre seemed not to hear her enter the barn, though she would have been unsurprised to learn that he was merely choosing not to acknowledge her presence just yet. He certainly seemed busy enough, searching carefully for something within his saddle bags, or perhaps merely repacking them after checking on their supplies.

When she got to within an arm's length of him with absolutely no response, though, Claudia knew something was not quite right and stopped where she stood. Peering past Navarre in the dim light, she found herself at a bit of a loss to explain what she saw there.

Navarre, hands trembling with suppressed emotion, was holding up a dark blue silk gown, obviously expensive and obviously well cared for. A second gown - cut for a different wearer - lay carefully folded nearby, tucked inside a black and silver version of the helm worn by Walter Sykes. There was also an old faded letter set off to the side - all Claudia could make out was a capital letter 'M'. The rest was too far gone, not that Claudia had ever learned to read more than a tiny portion of the alphabet.

Then Navarre reached up to yank off the black hood that covered his neck and head, releasing a tumble of long ink-colored hair. The hair, the dress, a thousand little things that had gone unnoticed until then, combined with Claudia's reappraisal of the person before her to lead her to one simple yet startling conclusion.

"You're a woman?!" Claudia blurted the words out before she could stop herself, and instantly regretted it.

Navarre, startled from her reverie, turned to face the unknown intruder with a speed no human should be capable of. Claudia was stunned to see tears shining in those dark eyes - right before she saw the mixture of rage, pain, and grief that made her wonder if the woman in front of her was altogether sane.

Claudia fell back a step under that terrifying gaze, chest constricting with the all-too-familiar rush of fear. She opened her mouth to apologize for the intrusion, closed it when no words emerged, then reopened it to try again. "I didn't mean to intrude, my lady. Your... secret is safe with me, I promise."

Navarre blinked slowly, then blinked again, as her face softened back into something more human and far less dangerous. Whatever emotional storm Claudia had stepped into the middle of either passed by or was otherwise contained, seemingly vanished as quickly as it had arrived.

Then, unexpectedly, Navarre began laughing. It was tinged at first with the same edge of lunacy that had haunted her eyes mere moments before, but rapidly settled into a genuine belly laugh that even Claudia had to grin at - it helped reassure the thief a little, but only a little.

Finally, Navarre wiped at her eyes, still smiling. "Forgive me - but you of all people should hardly have cause to be so startled by my ruse. Unless I miss my guess, you've been employing a similar one."

Claudia blinked in surprise as her mouth worked silently for several heartbeats - not even the brutish guards with their heavy fists had managed to see through her disguise. The instinctive denial just would not come, though, and she realized that continuing to deny the truth would only make her look even more foolish than the last few days already had. "How... did you know?"

Navarre chuckled deep and low, with the sort of underlying masculine confidence that had helped carry her lie. "Oh, darling... I daresay that, between my manhandling you onto the horse and the subsequent hours spent clinging to me for dear life as we rode, your deception was rather doomed to fail."

Something in that brazen statement - perhaps the idea that she been pressed that close to the odd woman in front of her, and that woman had actually noticed it enough to later comment on the fact - made Claudia flush clear through to the roots of her hair. After a moment, though, her sense of humor reasserted itself and she began laughing as well - it felt good, actually, after the unrelenting anxiety of the last few days.

Navarre smiled at her, the expression almost conspiratorial given their shared secret, then began carefully repacking the saddlebag. "So... I assume you have a name other than Mouse?"

Claudia smiled back, strangely relieved to not have to pretend any more. "I go by Joshua - it was my brother's name - but my real name is Claudia. Claudia Donovan."

She eyed Navarre for a long moment. "I'm guessing that *your* name isn't Charles..."

Navarre, having made quick but precise work of that saddlebag, shot Claudia another grin. "My name is Helena. Charles is... was my brother."

Helena's eyes clouded over as she corrected herself, followed swiftly by the return of everything else that had been weighing her down, and the unexpected moment of camaraderie she'd shared with Claudia came to an end just as quickly as it had begun.

Black eyes flicking towards the unseen sunset, Helena sighed. "I want to be on our way as early as possible. We should consider settling in for the night."

Claudia nodded in agreement - it wasn't as if there was any reason to stay up - and gamely offered to do her share of whatever 'settling in' entailed. "What can I do to help out?"

Helena looked back to the horizon as if gauging how much light remained. "I'm afraid I'm nearly useless after that fight earlier. If you would see to the horse, and then perhaps gather some firewood..."

Claudia, fine with the latter but terrified by the former, nodded as nonchalantly as she could. Gritting her teeth, she reached out for the war horse's reins, trying to picture a sweet, docile draft horse in its place. "Come on, girl, let's get you-"

The horse, somehow mortally offended by Claudia's attempts to be friendly, tossed its head with an angry snort and shied away, roughly yanking the reins from Claudia's hands. It then fixed Claudia with a furious stare, acting for all the world as if she had insulted it somehow.

Claudia smiled nervously at Helena, trying to hide her fear. Maybe they'd get along a little better if she knew more about the horse. "Uh... spirited little lady, huh? What's her name again?"

Helena, amused, merely crossed her arms and stood there as Claudia lost the battle of wills with her charger. "*His* name is Goliath."

Claudia fought not to roll her eyes - the beast was acting like this over an honest mistake in gender? No wonder she hated horses. Still, she refused to be further embarrassed in front of its owner, and made one last attempt to stare the charger down. "Good name for a war horse..."

It merely snorted at her in amusement, much like its mistress, and Helena finally grabbed the reins and placed them into Claudia's hands. Then she patted the beast on its nose, almost like a mother with a beloved but stubborn child. "Go with her, dear boy, and quit being so ridiculous. She didn't mean to insult you."

Claudia grinned despite herself as the horse actually bowed its head and let out a chastened huff. The charger followed her amiably enough as she led it to the nearby stall, and she found herself amused by how well horse and rider seemed to suit each other. "Goliath, huh? There's this story someone told me once about a giant with that name - a giant, and a tiny little guy named David..."

By the time Claudia finished her largely unschooled efforts at bedding down a much more pleasant Goliath - it turned out the horse had rather enjoyed her story - darkness had finally settled in completely. Helena had disappeared into one of the corners of the barn with a cryptic warning against trying to wake her after a day filled with so much fighting - something about soldier's instincts that Claudia didn't really understand, though the fact that she could end up badly injured by accident certainly registered clearly enough.

Rubbing at tired, scratchy eyes and still aching from a long day of riding, Claudia thought longingly of finding her own bed as she slipped out of the barn to gather the firewood Helena had requested - even the farmer and his wife seemed to have turned in for the night, as the cottage was now as dark as everything else.

It seemed unfair somehow that she was the last person awake after her own grueling day, but she couldn't really grumble about Helena's request for help when the woman had risked her own life to protect her - not that Claudia was any clearer on *why* she had. Still, the prospect of gathering wood out in the dark by herself was hardly a pleasant one.

For a moment or two, Claudia pondered whether gathering the firewood was even really necessary - surely they'd all be fine overnight without a fire. Then a cold gust of air rushed over her, a reminder that it would get uncomfortably cold up here in the hills now that the sun was down. Sighing, she set off to complete her chore, grateful that she at least had enough moonlight to see reasonably well.

It seemed to take an eternity, the night seeming to grow chillier with each passing second, but she finally managed to gather up an armful of brush and branches she hoped would work. She had expected the weight of it - heavy, though not unmanageable - but hadn't anticipated the simple awkwardness of her burden. The ever-shifting armful snagged on anything and everything, including her own clothing, not to mention the two branches she dropped for every one she tried to retrieve as it slipped from her arms.

Claudia was cursing and a little sweaty by the time she turned back to the barn - though she did notice that her aches and pains had lessened a little from all her movement. She grinned at Helena's probable amusement if she were to say as much, then grimaced as she realized there was probably another full day on horseback ahead of her tomorrow.

That, of course, brought to mind the unavoidable question of why a trained soldier - because Helena de Navarre could be nothing else, despite also being a woman - was so determined to keep around a petty thief who couldn't stay out of trouble to save her life. Claudia, being realistic, knew full well that she added nothing to the partnership that could even possibly begin to counterbalance all the work Helena had done to protect her so far.

It was possible that Helena was just lonely - the woman definitely traveled alone, and had apparently been doing so for a while - but that didn't quite seem like it, either. Of course, Claudia wasn't even convinced at this point that Helena was entirely sane - whatever tragedy had cursed her to wander in exile had clearly taken its toll, leaving the woman prone to some very odd turns of mood.

Really, though, it all boiled down to one thing once Claudia thought it over - she felt safer with Helena than without her, weird behavior and all. Even if Helena was merely biding her time until she found some way for Claudia to make herself useful, Claudia could live with that. It might even give her a chance to show that she wasn't completely helpless or witless, and redeem her a little in her rescuer's eyes.

A twig snapped in the darkness nearby, sounding far louder to a startled Claudia than it actually was. Claudia froze, thinking that staying still was probably best until she figured out what the noise was - it could be anything from a forest animal to Helena coming to check on her after her prolonged absence, and she didn't want to appear foolish again by overreacting. "Hello? Who's there? Is that you, Navarre?"

There was only silence, though Claudia wasn't sure an answer would have been any more reassuring. Another twig snapped nearby, followed by another lapse into silence, and Claudia began to get apprehensive. Silently chastising herself for not bothering to bring a weapon or even a lit torch, she fell back on her wits, the best and most reliable protection she'd ever had - in short, she started talking to herself. "Ah, Navarre - there you are! Listen, I'm sorry for wandering off like that, but I saw a good pile of branches just over there..."

She kept up a monologue as she went, a fake one-sided conversation with Navarre that would hopefully make whoever was following her think she had someone there to help defend her. She even tried to throw in a few non-committal responses of the sort Helena would make, though her attempt to alter her voice to match was definitely not her best work - the person following her was apparently no more impressed than she was, and the back of her neck began to prickle with genuine fear as they continued to follow her.

Testing her shadow's determination and intent, Claudia backed up a few steps, turned herself around, and started taking a different path to the barn. The unknown presence followed her without hesitation, even altering their pace to keep time with her own every time she changed it - even after she'd reached a brisk jog, whatever it was kept perfect time with her, remaining right behind her like nothing had changed.

Panicking now, Claudia broke into a full-out run for the barn. Clutching the ungainly pile of firewood to her chest - damned if she was just leaving it after all the work it had taken - she bolted through the trees as quickly as her legs would carry her, ignoring the branches and thorns that pulled at her and scratched her as she went. Finally, the woods gave way to the yard, and Claudia skidded to a stop with a gasp of relief - just to be safe, though, she turned to look back behind her, only to drop her precious bundle of firewood despite herself at the sight that greeted her.

The farmer stood just a few steps away, moonlight gleaming off the sickle in his hand - the same one whose razor-sharp edge he had absently tested in front of them earlier. The man's eyes glinted evilly as he swung that sickle down in an arc to Claudia's head - she threw up her hands with a shriek, cursing inwardly as she realized that she should have expected this after showing off that money pouch.

A ghastly snarl drowned out Claudia's shriek as something dark, furry, and exceedingly large sprang past her. Assuming at first that it was the dog coming to her aid, Claudia could only gape in disbelief as an enormous black wolf effortlessly dragged the farmer to the ground, glistening fangs closing around the man's throat. Claudia just stood there staring as the man struggled helplessly in the lethal vise of the wolf's jaws - then she gathered her wits about her and ran into the barn to go get Helena.

"Navarre! Helena! Get up - there's a wolf out there! It's killing the farmer!" Claudia slid to a stop inside the barn, almost doing a little dance as she spun around trying to find Helena. There was no sign of her, though, or of the hawk or the dog - just Goliath peering sleepily at her, not caring what the fuss was about so long as it ended quickly and he got to go back to sleeping.

Helena's gear was there, right where she had left it all, including the crossbow she had used to such good effect earlier. Claudia, desperate, snatched the thing up, along with an arrow, and ran to peer between a large gap in two of the boards that made up the barn wall - the farmer had stopped screaming once he died, but the wolf continued snarling savagely as it tore at the man's corpse. Wiping her sweaty forehead on her sleeve, Claudia nocked the arrow, took aim at the wolf, then tried to draw back the bowstring.

She pulled and pulled until her arms shook with the effort, but the thing did not budge. Finally, she just relaxed and stood there panting a moment, accepting the fact that the crossbow was designed for a full-grown man at least twice her strength. With a newfound respect for Helena's hardiness, Claudia began pulling at the bowstring again, throwing all the extra force her panic could give her into the act until - finally, finally - the string began to pull back.

A pale hand draped in familiar black reached around Claudia and plucked away the arrow.

Claudia turned around, saying a mental prayer of gratitude for Helena's timely return even as she began explaining the situation. "Oh, thank God! Look, there's a wolf-"

It was not Helena de Navarre standing behind her, and Claudia's words froze in her throat.

Navarre's scarlet-lined cloak was draped around the tall, slender figure of a woman who could only be described as unearthly. The strange woman seemed to glow as the moon's rays reflected off the black cloak, silvery light frosting the long brown curls that fell in a tumble from under her hood. Her skin, naturally fair to begin with, had the unnatural pallor of someone forced into utter exile from the sun, and wide, luminous green eyes stared at Claudia in bewilderment, as if that exile had also been from humanity itself.

Claudia stared right back, unable to help herself. The woman in front of her was easily the most beautiful creature Claudia had ever seen, despite her wan paleness - her beauty seemed to owe as much to inner perfection as outer, a certain purity of spirit radiating from her to fill the space she occupied.

She had Helena's sunflower in her hands, long, delicate fingers playing with its stem as she gazed at Claudia with a certain gentle bemusement. Finally, she spoke. "I know... It's alright..."

The beauty of her voice matched the beauty of her face, and for a long moment Claudia couldn't remember what it was the woman was supposed to know, or what was supposed to be alright. Then the wolf howled outside - an eerie, unearthly wail like the one she'd heard at sunset the night of her escape - and Claudia suddenly recalled the danger they were all in.

The woman didn't seem afraid, though. Her eyes had filled with some haunting, nameless emotion as she heard the wolf's cry - after that, she just turned away, walking past Claudia without a word as she headed toward the barn door.

Claudia instinctively tried to stop her, reaching for the woman's arm and missing. "Miss? My lady? You can't go out there! That wolf will kill you!"

"Miss, please!" Claudia all but screamed as the woman disappeared through the doorway. Feeling oddly bereft, Claudia just closed her eyes and bowed her head, tears trailing down her cheeks as she waited for the inevitable scream. When it didn't come, she opened her eyes to peer at the empty space where the woman had last stood.

Claudia slumped against the wall of the barn, hands sweaty and shaking as they gripped Helena's crossbow. "I've got to be dreaming. But my eyes are open, so maybe I'm awake and dreaming about being asleep. Or maybe I'm asleep, dreaming about being awake and then wondering if I'm dreaming..."

The mystery woman's voice, tinged with amusement, floated back to Claudia from just outside the barn door. "Oh, you're definitely dreaming..."

Claudia slapped herself hard across the face, wincing as it stung more than she expected, then leapt to her feet as she tossed the crossbow aside. Racing across the barn, she flung herself up the rickety ladder that led to the hayloft. After scrambling through the hay, she threw herself prone to stare out at the scene below her.

The woman stood out in the moon-washed yard, Navarre's cloak billowing around her slightly in the nighttime breeze. The farmer's mangled body lay at the far edge of the yard, in front of a makeshift lean-to, and the black wolf just sat next to it, watching curiously as the woman approached. She made no move toward the wolf itself, but merely stood gazing down at the bloody corpse it had left before she covered the farmer's remains with his own tattered cloak.

The woman's expression was largely unreadable from Claudia's vantage point, but her eyes seemed to fill with a mixture of anger and grief that Claudia thought had little to do with the dead man or the manner of his death. It had everything to do with the wolf she gazed upon, and it was disturbingly similar to what she'd seen in Navarre's eyes earlier.

The wolf was huge, easily the largest Claudia had ever seen - she figured it probably weighed as much as she did, if not more. Its thick black fur was coated in silver as it reflected the moonlight, making it seem to glow like the woman standing before it. The beast, strangely calm now for all its earlier ferocity, took a step toward the woman, and Claudia had to fight not to cry out and risk spooking it.

It closed the few steps between itself and the woman with excruciating slowness, golden eyes never leaving the woman's face. The woman merely smiled as if watching a very dear old friend approach - when it got close enough, she put out her hand for the wolf to examine. Those enormous black jaws opened, and Claudia nearly quit breathing.

Instead of growling or attacking, the wolf merely took the woman's arm in its jaw, tail giving a subdued wag of recognition. The jaws tightened ever so slightly, then let go - almost like it was gently squeezing her arm in greeting. The woman knelt down in front of the beast and circled her arms around its neck - the wolf wagged its tail a couple more times before docilely accepting the display of affection from the woman who could only be its mistress.

The wolf turned with a growl, startled and protective, as a man came racing into the yard. The man - with dark hair and dark eyes and a soldier's musculature to match his armor - spoke quietly to both wolf and woman, and the wolf relaxed. Then the man reached down to scratch the wolf between the ears before giving the woman a hug, apparently satisfied that all was well, and the trio took off into the trees together.

Claudia, utterly terrified, pushed away from the open doors of the hay loft. That was all she had the strength for, though, and she ended up just laying there in the hay, trembling and wide-eyed. Staring up at the barn roof, she started praying. "I know I didn't just see what I thought I saw, Lord. And I know what I'm thinking right now can't be true..."

Claudia had heard story after story of magic and witchcraft - everyone had - but she'd never seen anything with her own eyes to make her believe that they were true. Fear of something real and tangible - like the Bishop's Guard, or the animals in the forest - was bad enough, but this was just unsupportable. "Look, these are magical, unexplainable things that I know absolutely nothing about. Please, please, please don't make me part of them..."

Even as she uttered it, Claudia had a feeling that this particular prayer was one that would go unanswered.


	8. Chapter Seven

Sykes had ridden through all of the day as well as through the following night, racing without pause for Aquila - he stopped only to change mounts at various guard posts along the way, coming as close as he dared to running his current horse into the ground before switching to the next one.

Finally, the next morning, he saw the the walls and towers of Aquila rising on the plain above him. The city was still miles away, at least, but it was within his grasp - lashing his sweating horse with his riding crop, he galloped on as fast as the beast would carry him.

Navarre was back - the words echoed endlessly in Sykes' head, news of such worth that his current failure to recapture a simple thief would be of no significance whatsoever.

Sykes tried to suppress his anxiety, riding grimly toward the city gates, and had been mostly successful by the time he reached them. After what seemed like an eternity, he was clattering across the bridge and into the city, nearly running down the guardsmen at the gate in his haste. He pressed on through the streets without stopping until he entered the sunken passageway that gave him private, direct access to Castle Aquila.

His message was resounding in his head and rushing in his ears with every heartbeat now. Navarre was back, and out for bloody vengeance. Navarre was back, and the only man who had more to fear from that fact than Sykes himself was His Grace, the Bishop Of Aquila...

Back up in the hills, Claudia and Helena likewise rode through the morning, though at a considerably less frantic pace. They'd set out early, as planned, and Claudia had found traveling on horseback somewhat easier this time - she almost regretted that fact, however, as it freed her mind to continue picking over the nightmarish events of the previous night.

Claudia had forced herself to stay in the barn once the strange woman and unknown man had left with their unnaturally large wolf. She hadn't known what else to do, really, and so she huddled up close to Goliath, who was mercifully sweet-tempered with her, and just lain there shivering for what seemed like hours until consciousness finally fled.

She vaguely recalled a dream that the man and woman had returned, voices surprisingly soft and full of concern as they discussed her and what to do about her presence. At some point in her dream, the man had built the fire she'd completely forgotten about, and the woman had covered her with a blanket from the saddlebags.

She couldn't really recall anything else until Helena shook her awake just after sunrise, hawk and dog in tow like always. Helena had dodged every question Claudia put to her about where she and the animals had vanished to - she did, however, seem profoundly apologetic that she hadn't been there to defend Claudia from the farmer.

The farmer's corpse - appearing even more mangled in the cold light of day - was the only proof that Claudia had not just dreamt the whole thing. Had the body not been there, Claudia suspected, Helena would have accused her of being caught up in some sort of delusional nightmare that had bled over into reality - as it was, Claudia had the peculiar feeling that Helena knew *exactly* what had happened and was choosing to pretend she did not.

In some ways, it would have been better if Helena had flat-out refused to believe Claudia's story - Claudia would have been stung by her disbelief, of course, but it would have been that much easier to convince herself that it hadn't happened. Helena's amused acceptance of the odd turn of events gave Claudia nothing she could use to fight her mounting suspicions.

She had no proof, and kind of hoped she never would, but Claudia just *knew* deep down that Helena's disappearance, and that of the hawk and the dog, were tied to the sudden appearance of the woman, the man, and that wolf. The only explanations that came to mind involved Helena being cursed or possessed - neither was comforting, given that Claudia was already completely certain that Helena was at least a little mad.

Finally, just as Claudia's head was beginning to ache as badly as the rest of her, Helena pulled them to a stop inside a small, peaceful meadow. "I think we'll stop here for a few hours. We could both use the sleep."

She looked as exhausted as Claudia felt, once Claudia stopped to look - odds were that, wherever she'd vanished to, she'd gotten even less sleep than the young thief. Claudia slid down from Goliath's saddle, grateful for the break from riding, and all in favor of the proposed nap.

Goliath didn't protest as Claudia secured his reins to a tree branch - they'd finally become friends, it would seem, and Claudia was actually beginning to enjoy caring for the beast. That done, Claudia settled herself under the tree a short distance from Helena, arms wrapped tightly around herself to ward off the damp and chill.

It didn't do much good, of course, and Claudia's teeth eventually began to chatter - not even the dog's added warmth seemed to help much. Helena, nestled quite snugly under her cloak, must have heard the noise, because she opened one eye to peer at her traveling companion - though Claudia couldn't have known it, her lips and skin had begun to turn blue with the cold.

Helena simply pulled the cloak to one side, then patted the ground next to her. Claudia's hesitation must have shown on her face, because Helena just rolled her eyes. "You can continue freezing over there, or get warm over here. No offense, darling, but I'm hardly liable to try and take advantage of you in your current bedraggled state."

Somehow, that threw the absurdity of the entire situation into sharp relief, and Claudia just laughed before rushing over to join Helena under the cloak. The dog settled across them both, and Claudia quickly found herself truly warm for the first time in days.

Sleep began to settle over Claudia like some kind of slow-acting potion as the chill faded, and fatigue gave her the courage she'd lacked all morning. "Helena? You do believe me, right? About last night, I mean?"

Helena, though, was still alert enough to be annoyingly canny in her reply. "I believe that *you* believe it. Something happened last night, though it appears to be anyone's guess as to what."

Claudia sighed in exasperation. Helena smiled at her with genuine affection, then reached out to pat her hand by way of apology. "Tell me about the lady you saw. She sounds lovely..."

Claudia had described her earlier, of course, but didn't mind doing so again. "She was... the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. She had long brown hair, all in curls, and these green eyes that seemed to just stare right through you. And it looked like she was glowing, though it had to be a trick of the moonlight."

"And her voice?" Helena asked, eyes half-closed as if trying to picture the woman for herself. "You said she spoke to you. Did she tell you her name?"

Claudia felt a sudden surge of worry that she was being mocked, though a quick glance at Helena didn't seem to support that. If anything, there was an odd sort of intensity to Helena's expression that could only mean she believed her. "Uh, no, she didn't. Why?"

Helena, still wandering wherever her thoughts had taken her, merely smiled softly. "I've... waited a long time for a glimpse of a lady exactly like the one you describe. Wouldn't it be lovely if I could greet her by name when we meet?"

Claudia's drowsiness suddenly fled as she just gaped at Helena, trying to figure out what on earth she'd meant by that and not quite daring to ask. The hawk returned just then, with her usual noisy greeting, and Claudia let the interruption pull her from her increasingly confused thoughts.

She couldn't help a grin as Helena just nudged her in the arm with a certain familial exasperation. "Get some sleep, Claudia. The hawk will tell us if anyone approaches."

The dog, currently twitching away as it romped through some field in its doggie dreams, certainly wasn't going to be much help there. Shaking her head mentally, Claudia closed her eyes again and let herself drift off, hoping that things would be clearer when she woke back up.

The screams of parading peacocks - annoyingly similar to the wails of an upset child - echoed through the courtyard gardens of Castle Aquila as Sykes handed his lathered mount off to the guards at the gate. He took a certain joy in scattering the irritating birds as he entered those gardens with all the gravity of Death himself - the friars and other clerics gathered there glanced up from their quiet conversations as Sykes strode by, completely oblivious to the beauty surrounding him.

The Bishop's bodyguard and secretary stood together at the far end of the courtyard, and Sykes angled past a splashing, sparkling tiled fountain as he made his way over to them. The Bishop sat beneath a nearby mulberry tree, lost in conversation with a young woman dressed in a white feathered gown obviously meant to remind anyone seeing her of a swan.

The Bishop, laughing, dropped a small bit of food from the nearby table into her mouth, as if feeding a bird. The young woman - pretty enough, Sykes supposed, with her hazel eyes and long brown hair - laughed in return, seeming delightfully surprised at how her laughter echoed through the garden.

A young nun sat nearby playing the lute, face carefully schooled to reveal nothing of her emotions, but broke off as Sykes approached without bothering to slow down. The friars and clerics from before continued to gape, appalled at the grimy, sweaty soldier ruining the serenity of the gardens.

The Bishop looked up as Sykes approached, obviously displeased to see his Captain Of The Guard so unexpectedly even as he held out a hand to acknowledge his presence. Sykes knelt and kissed the emerald ring on that hand, a few drops of sweat falling from his forehead onto the Bishop's pristine white robes as he did so.

Grimacing, Sykes issued the expected apology. "My apologies, Your Grace. I come bearing urgent news."

The Bishop gazed coolly at his Captain, not particularly moved. "You've recaptured the thief, then?"

"Joshua Donovan is still out there, Your Grace," Sykes admitted. "The situation has become... complicated."

The Bishop's expression deepened into a frown. "And yet you waste your time by coming here, dirty, unshaven, and smelling of horse..."

"Navarre has returned," Sykes declared bluntly. "One of my men reported as much, but I didn't believe it until I saw it for myself."

The Bishop stiffened at the announcement, as if struck by lightning. He glanced involuntarily to his mistress, seeing instead for a moment the features of the woman she so eerily resembled, then regained his composure. Nodding politely to her and the others nearby, excusing himself from their company, he rose to his feet, eyes still fixed on Sykes. "Walk with me, Captain."

"So Charles de Navarre is still alive then?" The Bishop posed the question as they strolled along the covered walkways edging the garden, safe from prying ears. "I'm impressed."

Sykes shook his head, carefully phrasing his correction of the Bishop's misunderstanding. "Not Charles, Your Grace. His twin sister, Helena."

Quickly, Sykes outlined Marcus' encounter at the bridge and the debacle at the tavern. He avoided meeting the Bishop's eyes as much as possible, fuming inwardly at how easily Helena de Navarre - a mere woman - had made him and his men look like imbeciles. "Donovan, the thief, travels with her now and is under her protection. I have my men continuing to search, but I knew you'd want to be told right away."

The Bishop merely nodded then glanced away, attempting to hide his unease at the ill omen. There was only one reason that Helena de Navarre would risk her life twice to protect a petty thief - she knew the boy had found some weakness in Aquila's defenses and used it to escape.

A way out of the city was a way back in, and the Bishop did not doubt Navarre's ability to get whatever information she wanted out of the thief. Or that Navarre would use that information to come for him personally - for his own safety, it was imperative that both Navarre and the thief be destroyed.

There were, however, certain considerations while planning their demise. "Navarre's hawk. Does it still live?"

Sykes seemed a little nonplussed by the question, so the Bishop elaborated. "There should be a hawk traveling with Navarre."

"There is," Sykes confirmed, frowning slightly. "It's a hell of a bird - forgive my language, Your Grace - attacking on command and unhorsing one of my men."

The Bishop smiled as if that was exactly what he'd expected to hear. "This bird is indeed special - more cunning and more spirited than others of her kind."

The Bishop turned to stare at Sykes, a frightening intensity in his gaze. "Whatever happens, that hawk must not be harmed - I want it brought to me, alive and well. If anything happens to it, a new Captain Of The Guard will preside at your execution - do you understand me?"

Sykes didn't understand much of what the Bishop had said in the last few moments, but he understood the threat to his life perfectly. "Yes, Your Grace. Do you have any further instructions for me?"

The Bishop smiled slightly as he shook his head, pleased by the confusion and fear in Sykes' eyes - it was always best to keep his subordinates uncertain of his true intent. Turning a corner of the walkway, he began to lead himself and his Captain back into the gardens.

"We live in trying times," the Bishop observed conversationally after a moment. "This drought has led to famine, which prevents the people from paying their proper tribute to the Church. I try raising their taxes to resolve the problem, and am told there is nothing left to tax - imagine that."

The Bishop stopped abruptly, staring into Sykes' eyes with a sudden, fanatical intensity - Sykes stood impassively under that gaze, attempting to disguise his apprehension. "I had a dream last night, Captain. The Lord Almighty visited me in my dreams, and told me the cause of all our troubles. The Devil's messenger walks among us, and that messenger's name is Helena de Navarre."

In that moment, even Sykes - a man of little faith, if any at all - could almost believe. It didn't really matter, though - whatever Sykes felt personally about the matter, giving the Bishop Of Aquila what the man wanted was the fastest way to get the things that he himself wanted. Dropping to his knees again, Sykes kissed the Bishop's ring to indicate that his business was concluded.

"Go now," the Bishop commanded, gesturing to the courtyard gates. "And remember, Captain - to fail me is to fail forces far greater than one man alone."

Sykes nodded, then hurried to the gate as instructed, the very picture of a man on a mission. There was little doubt that he would complete his task, or die trying.

The Bishop watched him go, then turned to face his secretary, who stood his usual few paces behind him. This was too important to leave to chance, however much he trusted Sykes to give his all to his mission. "Get me a wolf hunter..."

Helena de Navarre woke to a familiar sound, one that instinctively kicked years of grueling training into overdrive. Her eyes snapped open, but the rest of her body lay as still as if she'd never woken, even as she tensed in preparation for a fight.

Her quick scan of the area was unable to locate any kind of threat - in fact, nothing at all seemed amiss. The late afternoon sun warmed the meadow where they'd stopped, and the hawk and the dog were both settled nearby, their heads cocked in what could only be their respective versions of amused curiosity as they eyed something intently.

The noise came again, and Helena was able to identify it even under the dog's playful bark - it was the familiar whoosh of her broadsword cutting through the air, albeit rather clumsily. Helena lifted her head as the dog dashed a few feet forward with another round of playful barking, then smiled as she saw what had attracted its attention. Claudia was a few paces away in the clearing, clumsily swinging Helena's broadsword at invisible enemies as the dog started nipping gently at her heels and ankles.

The girl - painfully scrawny and woefully underfed under her baggy clothing, Helena noted unhappily - needed both hands just to lift the sword. She staggered with every swing of the blade, the weight and momentum of the weapon dragging her small body around - she wasn't completely inept, however, and Helena sat up to get a better view of the mock battle.

Claudia, completely unaware that she was now being observed, sliced another imaginary attacker in two as she ferociously battled her way through an enemy ambush. She fought valiantly to clear a path to the helpless young maiden before her, though she couldn't decide if the maiden in question was a dear sister or a defenseless sweetheart - whichever she was, Claudia pushed bravely forward to rescue her. Anyone else might have been hopelessly outnumbered, but Claudia was a trained knight clad in fearsome black - perhaps even Helena or her brother Charles - and she fought with the strength and skill of any ten men.

Letting loose a fierce battle cry, Claudia raised her sword for the next blow - and was spun around helplessly as a familiar black-clad arm wrested the sword gently but effortlessly from her hands.

Helena returned to her previous place under the tree, then carefully drove the sword into the damp, soft earth beside her. "That sword has been in my family for five generations. I'm told it has never known defeat in battle."

Helena's black eyes met Claudia's brown ones with a certain reproachfulness in their gaze, but Helena was smiling nonetheless. Her hand reached out and caressed the sword's hilt as her thoughts momentarily drifted inward - Claudia figured she was probably recalling the sword's history, and considered asking her to share it.

It was certainly a beautiful and immensely valuable sword, as Claudia had noted from the first, though she had somehow found herself with absolutely no urge to steal it. The metal was obviously of high quality, excellently forged and crafted, and two large jewels were embedded at each end of the crosspiece, with one more between the two where the crosspiece met the handle.

Helena followed Claudia's gaze, noting with surprise the utter lack of avarice there. "This single jewel here, on the hilt, commemorates my father's battle against the Saracens at Jerusalem. These two on the crossguard represent my family name and our alliance with the Holy Church in Rome."

Helena's fingers had moved over each of the jewels as she'd mentioned them, then followed the curve of the metal to trace over an empty socket on the other side of the sword's hilt, big enough perhaps for a gem the size of a bird's egg. She looked up at Claudia thoughtfully.

Claudia had a sudden inkling of what Helena de Navarre might want with her, as something both knowing and expectant filled those black eyes. Did the woman need a thief to assist with filling that empty socket, by helping her steal whatever jewel it was she wanted for that sword? Feeling strangely insulted somehow, Claudia cleared her throat. "Listen - you don't seriously expect me to help..."

"No," Helena said as she smiled slightly. "That empty socket is mine to fill, now that my brother is gone - but it seems that each generation of my family is called upon to undertake some sort of quest in the process."

Claudia, both relieved and cautiously intrigued, shot Helena a grin. If the woman was finally opening up to her, and didn't need her to steal anything, then perhaps they were becoming friends after all. She could just see herself riding off with Helena on some knightly quest for the lost treasures of a lost kingdom. "And what's *your* quest? If you don't mind me asking..."

Helena's face darkened, a trace of the madness Claudia so feared glinting in her eyes. "My quest, little thief, is to kill a man."

Claudia swallowed hard as she felt her expression go blank. She could just as easily imagine Helena dragging her along on some horrible quest to hunt down and kill some poor bastard - it would certainly be an epic adventure, though. "I kinda feel sorry for the poor guy. Does the walking corpse have a name?"

"His Grace, the Bishop Of Aquila," Helena said tonelessly, and Claudia thought for a moment that it was just a bizarre and poorly-considered joke. Then she met Helena's eyes again, and fought the urge to back away from what she saw there.

"I... see," Claudia finally managed to say weakly. Given her own experiences back in Aquila - along with the rumors that had always swirled about the city - she could certainly picture Helena de Navarre having excellent reasons to want the Bishop dead. She also knew, though, that she did not want to know what they were, did not want any part of anything that took her anywhere near Aquila again.

For a brief, shining moment, Claudia had forgotten that Helena de Navarre was mad as well as likely cursed or possessed. The last traces of Claudia's heroic daydreams faded under the weight of that knowledge as she dusted her hands off on her thighs and tried to sound completely nonchalant. "Well, you've clearly got a lot to do, and looking after me is only going to slow you down. Good luck with your quest - I hope we meet up again after you're done so you can tell me all about it."

Helena stood awkwardly as she watched the thief began to back away, clearly frightened for all her brave words. She willed the girl to meet her gaze, hoped against hope to find the right words to win her back over - she'd long ago ceased praying. "Come with me to Aquila."

Claudia shook her head frantically, taking another step towards the trees as her face went bloodless. "No. Hell no. I don't care what you do to me."

Helena bit back her impatience. The moment was going badly, but she'd expected it to, and she might still be able to turn it around. "I need your help, Claudia. I can't get into Aquila by myself - you're the only one who's ever escaped it."

"*Escaped?*" Claudia's sharp laugh held a note of approaching hysteria. "I got lucky - that's all! I should have died!"

"If you did it once by accident, you can do it again on purpose," Helena insisted, inwardly cursing the twisting, miserable, undeserved fate that left her relying on the frightened child in front of her.

Claudia began to weep openly, shaking her head in denial. Her voice was little more than a whisper. "I finally got out of that miserable city. I have a chance to do something better with my life now. Please, please, please don't make me go back..."

Helena grabbed the girl by the front of the tunic, forcing herself to ignore the child's tears. Claudia cringed away from Helena's gaze, from the madness and the rage Helena could feel rising inside herself. Taking a deep breath, Helena tried to force herself back from that edge, still hoping she might be able to reason with the girl.

Slowly and painfully, the words choked with anger and unshed tears, Helena tried desperately to explain. "For two years, I've waited for a sign - something, anything, to let me know help was at hand. That's two years with no roof over my head, with no place I could call home. Two years of avoiding the Bishop's Guard, biding my time, waiting for a sign from God or anyone else that the moment of my destiny had arrived. And then, one day, just as I'd given up entirely, there you are, heralded by the city bells themselves..."

Claudia, still frightened and incredulous, nonetheless pulled herself back together with praiseworthy swiftness. Smoothing her tunic down, she stared Helena right in the eye, chin lifted in defiance. "I talk to God all the time, my lady, and - no offense - He hasn't mentioned you once."

Helena, rapidly losing control of her temper, yanked the sword out of the ground and swung it menacingly back and forth with one hand. "Perhaps you forgot to ask."

Claudia swallowed convulsively in renewed fear as she watched that razor-sharp blade cut the air, but bravely held her ground. Eyes grave, she tried to reason with Helena one last time. "Look, I'm as common as they come. I have the same hopes and dreams for myself as any common woman. There are-"

Claudia fumbled for words, then began again. "There are strange forces at work in your life - magical forces that surround you. I don't understand them - I don't *want* to understand them - but they scare me more than you ever will."

Helena, face blank as she struggled for control, said nothing.

Claudia grimaced, knowing that she did owe Helena *something* for having saved her life. "You saved my life - twice - but we both know I can't ever repay you for it. We both know I'm just a stupid thief who won't ever amount to anything, even if I do somehow manage to stay alive."

Helena, implacable, merely continued staring at her in silence.

"I'm pretty sure you won't kill me just for being what I am," Claudia added finally, fists clenched at her sides, "but I would rather die than go back to Aquila. Have I made myself clear?"

Helena, still teetering on the brink, was suddenly aware of how small and defenseless Claudia looked - of how fragile and helpless the girl actually was, despite all her bravado. She was also aware of how she must look to the poor terrified child - a bully with a sword who outweighed and outmatched her, trying to force her into a private vendetta that had nothing to do with her and was likely suicidal.

Claudia turned her back and headed slowly for the trees as Helena watched her go, watched destiny slip away as her last hope disappeared. Sensing the scrutiny, and meeting no resistance, the young thief sped up. Finally sliding over the edge, Helena raised her arm and hurled the precious heirloom broadsword like a spear.

The sword buried itself in a tree trunk mere inches from Claudia's head with a solid thunk, and she spun around to look for the source of the sound. She looked from the sword back to Helena in disbelief, heart catching in her throat as she read the madness in Helena's eyes and expression.

She'd been wrong - this woman, crazy and obsessed beyond all reason, would kill her if she tried to leave again. Glancing nervously over at the sword one last time, Claudia turned to Helena and forced a smile she hoped was placating as she bent down to grab a fallen tree branch, eyes never leaving the madwoman's face. "Well, I guess I'll gather some firewood..."

The dark forest was quiet around the seemingly deserted campsite. The embers of the abandoned campfire, glowing red like a setting sun, were the only sign that anyone had even been there recently - that and Goliath, tethered at the edge of the clearing with Helena de Navarre's sheathed sword hanging from his saddle, snorting and stamping in boredom as he tugged at another mouthful of the grass near him.

A twig snapped nearby in the darkness beyond the fire, then another, as Goliath looked up, pricking his ears at the noise. The charger whinnied happily in recognition as the strange woman from the previous night - the one Claudia had watched command a wolf - stepped out of the trees and into the campsite.

This night was a little warmer than the previous one had been, and she'd not yet felt the need to don Helena's cloak. Her clothes, much like Claudia's, were a a simple man's tunic and pants - her only weapon was the well-maintained dagger at her side. Her hair, instead of hanging loose like the night before, was tightly plaited to keep it out of her face as she traveled.

She glanced around expectantly, hoping to see her lupine companion, but there was no sign of it. A man - the same one who had rushed to her side the night before - entered the campsite as she searched the nearby trees. He placed a hand briefly on his companion's shoulder, giving her a reassuring smile. "If she doesn't turn up in a little bit, we'll go check on her."

She nodded silently as the man went to revive the dying fire, then she smiled again as Goliath whickered at them both in greeting. The beast snuffled and lipped at the hand she held out, giving her a somewhat reproachful look when he realized the hand was empty.

The woman was about to start searching the saddlebags for an apple, or something equally tasty to a horse, when something caught her eye. The sword dangling from the saddle was not an unusual sight at all, but there was something tucked beneath its hilt that drew her attention - closer examination revealed it to be a hawk's feather.

Holding it out to let the moonlight catch it better, she studied its pattern and coloration as if entranced. Her fingers traced along its delicate edges, feeling a certain kinship with the creature it had come from as dim memories of soaring through the air tried futilely to surface.

Her relaxed, if somewhat vague, smile transformed into the tight-lipped image of barely controlled fury as recognition of some kind suddenly dawned on her. She strode angrily over to the fire and dropped the feather in - the rage didn't fade for several moments after the thing had burned to ashes.

Her companion watched her closely throughout the entire thing, seeming to relax again only after she visibly shook off whatever was bothering her and walked back over to Goliath. The man continued watching as she uncinched and removed the horse's saddle with a practiced ease, setting it carefully off to the side, but his expression as he watched indicated that the scene was a familiar one.

She moved on to untie Goliath's halter, and the beast gave a brief snort of protest as she led it away from the grass it had been enjoying. It was apparently as familiar a part of the sequence as anything else, because it merely earned Goliath an amused chuckle. "Hush, you."

Tossing the halter across Goliath's withers, she reached up to take hold of his mane, gently using the leverage to swing herself easily onto his back. She smiled again as the horse whickered happily - they'd always gotten along well. "Now, let's see if you still remember our last lesson..."

Tightening her legs as she shifted her weight, she urged Goliath forward, guiding him into a nice slow trot around the campfire. Then she shifted her weight again, and the large warhorse began to dance with an unexpected grace - responding to the subtle shifts in her weight, the ever-changing pressure of her thighs, knees, and calves, as well as the few nearly inaudible commands she voiced, horse and rider moved through the beautiful and complex dressage patterns they practiced to ease the long, too-quiet nights.

As the two circled the clearing like a single entity, almost as perfectly matched to each other as the horse and its actual mistress, the woman felt the world fade away. She could almost imagine that she was a little girl again, back at her childhood home in Anjou - if she tried hard enough, and closed her eyes tightly, she could even feel the warm sun shining on her as she rode through those familiar fields.

"Uh - a little help here?"

The woman opened her eyes and brought Goliath to a stop without uttering a single command. The man - contenting himself with eating his fill of the supplies as he watched his companion - was on his feet, sword drawn seemingly out of nowhere, before the unknown speaker had even finished their sentence.

The voice - gender indeterminate, and somewhat familiar - came again. "My lady? Sir? I'm up here!"

The woman looked up, finally tracking the voice to a nearby tree, and her brow furrowed in an odd mixture of confusion and amusement. Perched carefully on a limb above their heads, back resting against the tree trunk, was the red-haired boy she'd seen at the farm the night before.

It seemed for a moment as if he were merely afraid to come down for some reason - fearful, perhaps, of whatever he sought their help against - but a closer examination showed that he had in fact been tied to the tree. His hands were also clearly bound, but he smiled as if it were all the most normal situation in the world. "Oh, hey! Remember me? We met last night!"

The man quirked an eyebrow - not nearly so amused as the woman - but kept his silence, letting the woman handle the conversation once she seemed to recognize the stranger. The woman nodded briefly at the man, as if to indicate that everything was alright, then returned to the conversation at hand. "Yes, I remember you. How on earth did you end up like that?"

The captive redhead seemed to agree that it was a rather pertinent query. "How did I- Uh, well, that's a really good question. You see, some friends tied me up here as a prank, and..."

Both the man and the woman raised their eyebrows nearly to their hairlines, obviously not believing a word. The man, in particular, seemed almost as amused as he was skeptical. "A prank? Really?"

The stranger, clearly trying to think fast, reached for a more suitable explanation. "Okay, look. I got on the bad side of some guys from the Bishop's Guard. They got creative when I decided to fight back, and left me up here."

It was, in its way, more plausible than the last tale, though it still didn't ring true. Both the man and woman moved closer to the tree so they could get a better look at their unexpected guest, and the man actually started laughing as he peered at the ropes. "Check it out..."

The woman took a closer look, and almost laughed herself. Helena de Navarre was clearly the one who had tied the boy up - she would know those knots anywhere, having been present when the other woman had learned to tie them. Leaving someone captive and defenseless in the forest at night wasn't something that Helena would do lightly, though, which begged the question of what had driven her to do so.

For that matter, what was the boy even still doing around? The woman hadn't bothered to verify the assumption, but she'd just figured the boy was somehow tied to the farm that they'd found themselves at. On closer inspection, however, he seemed entirely too clever and well-spoken to be a simple farm boy.

"Please get me down," the boy begged. "There's a giant owl up here looking at me like it's awfully hungry..."

The man just rolled his eyes and sighed. "I'll cut him down. You go see if there's any word on what the hell this all means."

"Oh, thank God," the boy said as the man started to climb the tree. "There really is a huge owl up here..."

The woman moved to start looking through the saddlebags - maybe Helena had left them some sort of note explaining her intent - but it was slow going with everything those bags had to hold. The process was further slowed by her attempts to keep an eye on her companion's efforts to cut their guest down from the tree.

She was about to tell the man that she'd found nothing to indicate Helena's purpose in keeping the boy captive when a familiar wolf's howl rang out. Smiling at the sound, she turned to explain to their guest that there was nothing to fear.

Before she could even voice the words, though, a noisy scuffle broke out over by the tree. Turning to look, the woman saw that the boy had somehow managed to catch his rescuer by surprise and knock the man out - though with only limited success, it would seem, since the man was even now beginning to come back around.

It was too little too late, unfortunately, as the boy was already long gone.

The woman grimaced as she moved to check on her companion. There wasn't much they could have done to prevent the boy from escaping - especially with no word as to why he was even there in the first place - but Helena was still going to be furious with them.

Unexpectedly, she found herself longing for that anger, a longing as deep and as pointless as her longing for sunlight on her skin - more than anything, she wanted to see Helena's eyes as they flashed with her irritation, to hear her voice again, even if it was raised in a shout.

Sighing, she turned to stare back at the forest in resignation, even as she helped her companion to his feet and began to check his head for serious injury.


	9. Chapter Eight

The brightening dawn began to light up the sky as Claudia stumbled wearily onward - she'd pressed on all night, desperate to be as far away as possible from that haunted clearing. The trek through the darkness hadn't been an easy one - the scratches on her hands and face stung like fire, and her clothes were now covered in leaves and dirt - but she considered the discomfort a small price to pay to be free of Helena de Navarre and her friends.

Claudia, idly noting how the rising sun cast its light over the crest of a nearby slope, stopped in her tracks and began sniffing at the air with a sudden interest. A smile crossed her face as she realized that it meant someone nearby was cooking breakfast - a breakfast that she had the coin to buy some of. Patting her growling stomach soothingly, she licked her lips and started climbing faster.

Miles away, back at the clearing, Helena was surveying the campsite - it had not been an easy night for her, either, and her face was lined with fatigue. Frowning, she headed directly for the tree where she'd left the young thief. The girl's absence and the severed ropes told her everything she needed to know - they'd let the child go free. Of course they had - they had no idea of the child's importance, no way to know *why* she'd been left there.

Maybe if she'd thought to leave them a note explaining her actions, they'd have understood what to do. Grunting in frustration, furious at herself and her helplessness, Helena smacked a balled fist against the tree trunk. Then she turned to face the remains of the campfire, as she tried to convince herself that the child had been a lost cause anyway - the poor thing would probably never have survived guiding her back into Aquila, and was probably better off as far away from her as possible.

The all-too-fresh memory of the last few days caused Helena to snort derisively at that thought, and Goliath, hearing her, snorted back happily in return. Helena looked over to the charger and simply froze, unable to do anything but stare as an incredulous smile spread across her face - the sight that greeted her was just so incongruous that she would probably still have smiled even if her executioner had been standing over her with an ax.

Oh, Goliath was fine, just as well-fed and well-cared-for as ever, and stood right where Helena had left him at sunset. During the long night, however, someone had combed the charger's thick black mane until it gleamed, before braiding it and curling it into heavy ringlets - the sunflower Helena had picked back at the run-down farm had been woven into the beast's forelock, and that told Helena all she needed to know about the identity of the culprit.

Goliath watched his mistress with an expression that was part embarrassment and part defiance, as if he was daring the human to say one word about his current appearance. Helena, grinning, crossed the rest of the way over to the charger, patting his side and scratching him between his ears.

"My poor boy," Helena murmured fondly, throat tight and eyes shining with unshed tears. "I never could refuse her anything, either..."

Claudia crouched down low at the top of a hill, peering curiously at the source of the heavenly scent she'd caught earlier - early-morning fog mixed with smoke from the cooking fire to obscure the figures preparing their breakfast below, so there wasn't much to see. Their words were garbled by distance, their voices faint, though it was clear there were quite a few of them - it wasn't particularly safe for her to go wading into random groups of people, so she hesitated, weighing the potential risks against her need for food.

A heavy, gloved hand suddenly closed on her shoulder from out of nowhere before spinning her around to face the body it was attached to.

Claudia's mouth worked soundlessly as she stared at the burly member of the Bishop's Guard whose grip now held her like a vise. When no words came, the guard just grinned broadly and shoved Claudia over the crest of the hill. "Come join us!"

Claudia tumbled head over heels down the hillside until she reached the bottom, unable to stop her painful descent through the rocks and brush beneath her. She landed sprawled on her back, breathless and and a little dizzy, then struggled to raise her head for a better view as a pair of armored legs walked into her field of vision - a blink or two cleared her blurry sight, and she immediately wished it hadn't.

Ivan - the guard who'd singled her out at the tavern - stood over her, smiling unpleasantly. "Good morning! Don't worry, little mouse, this time the drinks are on me."

Claudia, cursing inwardly, just let her head fall back against the hard ground with a groan and a thud. The other guards gathered around at the noise, but Claudia made no other attempt at movement until Ivan grabbed her by the front of her tunic and forced her into a sitting position. "Where's Navarre, boy?"

"Navarre... Navarre..." Claudia pretended not to recognize the name, hoping it would buy her some time to think, but Ivan would have none if it. He held a clenched, mailed fist in front of her face, the threat obvious. "Wait, wait! Big guy, right, has a black horse? I think he went south, back to Aquila!"

She flung a hand out in what she hoped was the right direction, but no one there bought her story. One of the guards - the same one that had shoved her down the hill - just rolled his eyes and shook his head as he looked to his commander. "I'm guessing we ride north, then, sir?"

Claudia, indignation flaring through her, sat up straight and squared her shoulders. "You know, it's rude to assume someone you don't even know is a liar!"

"And yet you knew we would do just that," Ivan said finally as he studied his captive. "We ride south, to Aquila."

Claudia fought the urge to kick and scream in frustration as her own cleverness came back to haunt her. She knew better than to offer any actual protest, however, as Ivan's men dragged her to her feet and then across their camp to one of the horses - she didn't utter a word as they shackled her hands behind her, or when they boosted her onto a horse and tied her feet together with a rope that ran under the beast's belly.

All Claudia could do was silently watch the guards break camp with impressive speed, eager for the hunt that they were certain would end in Charles de Navarre's death - a bitter smile flickered across her face as she considered Navarre's true identity. Then she looked upward to the sky, rapidly filling with heavy gray clouds. "We both know I told them the truth, Lord. How am I supposed to know what's right if you keep confusing me like this?"

Then Ivan trotted up alongside her on his own horse and took the reins. The entire troop followed after him as they set off down the road to Aquila.

Helena travelled down that same road to Aquila under that same gray sky, letting Goliath lead the way as she lost herself in her own grim thoughts. She was going back to the city, with or without Claudia Donovan. The Bishop Of Aquila would die, or she herself would die trying to kill him - the actual outcome had long ago ceased to matter to her, and she cared only that she was finally taking some sort of action.

She was done waiting for some divine signal that would never come. In that moment of bitter honesty, she could admit to herself that they'd lost, all of them, the moment the curse had taken them - no matter how this venture ended, it was merely a final act of defiance that changed nothing.

The wind suddenly picked up, edged with the chill of the looming winter, and it left a choking, blinding mixture of dust and leaves in its wake. Helena raised an arm to shield her eyes against it, and the hawk, perched on her other arm, huddled close against its mistress in search of protection and warmth - the dog, trotting faithfully alongside them, merely barked happily and snapped playfully at passing leaves.

Somewhere off to the side of the road, a dead tree branch crashed to the ground as the wind yanked it loose. The noise caused Goliath to shy in apprehension, and the hawk to leap to the air with an annoyed screech that blended strangely with her canine companion's suspicious whine. Helena steadied Goliath with a soft word or two, then looked around to make sure the falling tree limb wasn't a sign of some greater danger looming ahead - her shrewd gaze found nothing but open fields dotted with the usual familiar domed granaries and the occasional flock of sheep.

Seeing nothing to further alarm her, Helena urged Goliath onward into a canter, leading them all unknowing into the waiting ambush.

Ivan and his men lay silently scattered among the brush lining the roadside, watching patiently as their quarry rode into view. Claudia was stretched out on her stomach alongside them, rendered useless by the gag in her mouth and the heavy manacles trapping her hands behind her back - a sick sort of terror and helplessness filled her as she watched Helena ride to her death, completely unaware of what awaited her.

Helena de Navarre was a madwoman, and almost certainly cursed on top of it, but Claudia watched the proud warrior approach on her black charger and suddenly knew only that the woman had saved her life - twice. Whatever else she was, Helena de Navarre did not deserve to die like this - but she was going to anyway, and Claudia understood, deep down, that it was all her fault somehow. That knowledge hurt far worse than anything else she'd been through thus far.

The sick feeling in Claudia's stomach only grew worse as she watched Ivan nod to the other guards and heard the soft clicks of multiple crossbows being loaded. She tested the gag silencing her, and found that it wasn't quite so secure as her captors had thought - grimacing and contorting her face, praying her hair hid her actions, she worked feverishly to pull that gag toward the center of her mouth so that she could try to shout some kind of warning. Down the road, Goliath's ears pricked forward as he seemed to sense the hidden scrutiny of himself and his rider - Helena, not understanding, nonetheless slowed to take a better look at her surroundings.

The gag finally slipped into Claudia's mouth, allowing her at least some semblance of a voice again, and she weighed her options as she glanced at the armed soldiers surrounding her. None of them would hesitate to kill her if it looked like she was even just thinking of warning Navarre - but if she did nothing, they'd kill Helena instead. Claudia, still not believing what she was about to do, shut her eyes, gathered her courage, and took a deep breath.

The hawk suddenly screeched overhead, breaking the ominous silence, and the already skittish Goliath reared up in alarm. Claudia, figuring now was as good a time as any, opened her mouth to shout her warning - only to have the guard next to her notice at the last second and try to gag her again by jamming his hand into her mouth, undoubtedly proud of his quick thinking.

It was a mistake. Claudia was in no mood to be messed with - she bit down until her mouth filled with the metallic taste of blood, and the guard bellowed loudly in pain and surprise. Ivan, trying desperately to salvage the ambush, shouted the order to open fire.

A veritable storm of arrows was loosed to rain down on Helena. Claudia winced as she saw one strike Helena in the leg - blood splattered against the saddle as the bolt buried itself deep. The hawk, fiercely protective as always, screeched in pure fury, diving down to attack the man who'd shot its mistress - the dog, seeming to take that as his cue to attack, launched a grisly assault on the nearest guards. Helena, for her part, simply ignored her wound as she drew her sword and wheeled Goliath around.

Claudia, forgotten amidst the scuffle despite her earlier defiance, couldn't help smiling savagely at the shouting and screams that trailed in Helena's wake - the bastards deserved it. That instant was all she allowed herself, though, as she pushed herself up onto her knees and began searching for the best way to make her escape - she had no illusions of being any use to Helena in this fight.

She smiled again as she saw Ivan staring at the hawk, face almost purple with rage as he watched it swoop down again and again to attack whoever it deemed the greatest threat. The dog was doing equal damage, but Ivan's hatred for the bird was personal - it had helped its master escape Ivan twice now, and could not be allowed to do so again. Ivan raised his crossbow, taking his time to ensure he had a clean shot at the hawk.

Gritting her teeth against the effort and discomfort involved, Claudia forced her body to just bend - employing the same uncanny flexibility that had gotten her through the sewer drain, she arched and tugged until the chain linking her manacles was in front of her. Flinging herself forward at Ivan, she tossed the chain over his head and pulled it as tight as she could - unfortunately, Ivan was slightly faster, wedging his hands between the chain and his throat.

Claudia, refusing to give up, threw all her weight and strength into tightening the chain, but she didn't have much of either to offer - Ivan twisted and bent as he yanked down on the chain, and Claudia went sailing over his head. Ivan, focused on retrieving his crossbow, merely knocked her aside with a glancing blow from his gloved fist - then he climbed onto his horse and began searching the skies for the hawk.

The hawk was far from where Ivan had last sighted it. Busy assisting its mistress, it was now swooping and diving as it fought right alongside Helena, Goliath, and the dog. Helena was fighting like the madwoman she was, the absolute fury and relentlessness of her attack driving anyone she faced into full-on retreat - or rather, anyone she faced who was still able to run.

That retreat, however, had the unintended consequence of leaving Helena's back completely exposed without any warning. It didn't take Ivan long to notice such a tempting target. His earlier vendetta against the hawk momentarily set aside, Ivan's eyes narrowed in triumph and satisfaction as he raised his crossbow again for a shot that he could not possibly miss - Navarre would never know what hit him, and Ivan would get the glory of having brought him down.

Claudia struggled back onto her knees as she watched Ivan take aim. Desperate to stop him, she grabbed the nearest object to hand - a rock, apparently - and hurled it with all her might, shouting in jubilation as it hit Ivan's helmet with a satisfying crack. Ivan's shot went wild, missing Helena - Claudia got to see it happen in the split second before one of the forgotten guards smashed his crossbow against her head, sending her sprawling as she cried out in pain.

She never saw Ivan's arrow hit an unintended target, never heard the hawk cry out in pain as the bolt buried itself deep in its chest. Helena, helpless to intervene, saw it all - she looked up from the cluster of guards she was fighting to see the poor bird start plummeting back to the earth in a flurry of feathers, wings struggling uselessly to hold her aloft. Helena cried out as if she were the one who'd been struck, then jerked on Goliath's reins convulsively as she tried to work out where the bird would land.

Beyond the knot of guards surrounding her, Helena saw Ivan sitting in the road on his mount, crossbow still in his hands. Ivan grinned at her, smug and savage, and Helena drove Goliath toward him with a bellow of absolute rage - in the time it took Helena to get close enough to swing her sword at him, Ivan had already fired once more.

The bolt went deep into Helena's shoulder - her sword flew from her hand as she fell from the saddle. She hit the ground hard enough to make Claudia wince and simply laid there, gasping in pain. She finally managed a moment later to lift her head enough to survey her surroundings, just in time to see Ivan bearing down on her, his own sword raised high.

The will to survive took over as Helena pushed herself onto her knees, searching futilely for anything she could use as a weapon. In desperation, Helena took hold of the arrow shaft protruding from her leg and yanked the bolt free - it was surprisingly steady in her hands as she staggered to her feet to watch Ivan's approach.

Claudia, for her part, could never quite believe afterward that what she witnessed next had actually happened.

Helena waited until the last possible instant before dodging under Ivan's blade with a grace that belied her injuries - then she drove the bloody arrow clutched in her fist up and into Ivan's chest. The force and momentum of Ivan's galloping charge turned against him, helping push the bolt into his heart even as it threw him from the saddle - he was dead before he even hit the ground.

The impact knocked Helena back to the ground again, but she struggled back to her feet and went to retrieve her sword. The remaining guardsmen saw Helena approach - covered in both Ivan's blood and her own - and decided that it simply wasn't worth continuing the fight. To a man, they dropped their weapons, mounted their horses, and hurried off back to Aquila.

Completely oblivious to the strangely orderly retreat, Helena stumbled through the bodies littering the roadside, Goliath and the dog following her as the trio went to join the fallen hawk. The bird lay in the dust, the arrow jutting awkwardly from beneath one blood-soaked wing - its golden eyes, usually so sharp, were glazed over with pain. Helena drove her sword into the ground and knelt beside the bird, hands clenching and unclenching as she tried to figure out how to save the wounded creature.

Blood from her own wounds stained the ground where the hawk lay, but Helena appeared to be beyond anything so trivial as pain. Lifting the bird with trembling hands, Helena gently tried to clean the wound, to see how bad it was - it was deep, far beyond any meager healing skills she might possess. There was one hope, perhaps - one slim chance...

Helena looked up to the west, where the sun hovered like fire just above the top of the distant hills there - not enough time, not nearly enough time. Fighting back tears of grief and rage, she looked down again at the injured bird lying so trustingly in her hands - Goliath whickered unhappily and the dog started to whine. For the first time in years, Helena began to pray: God help me - help me, please...

She started as a shadow fell across her, and looked up to find herself staring into the face of Claudia Donovan. The thief stood staring down at Helena, dazed and pale and sickly - blood from a scalp wound trickled down the girl's face, and a chain swung from her shackled hands.

Claudia's eyes filled with sorrow and anger as they gazed on the wounded hawk in Helena's hands - then those eyes shifted to meet Helena's, something unreadable flickering across their depths. It seemed for a moment as if the girl would simply turn and flee - not that anyone would blame her - but she stood her ground as if rooted in place, like metal drawn to a lodestone.

Helena had no idea how Claudia had even come to be at that ambush in the first place, and had no time to care one way or the other. Cradling the hawk in one hand, Helena used the other hand to pull herself to her feet, clinging to a sudden faint ray of hope the same way she was currently clinging to her sword hilt. Holding the injured bird out to Claudia, she found her voice again long enough to speak - it was hoarse with pain. "Take her. Find help."

Claudia, still a little dazed, blinked in surprise. "Me? But..."

"I have no one else!" Helena all but shouted, voice tinged with anguish.

Claudia swallowed convulsively, then chewed at her lower lip as she tried to find gentle words for a harsh truth. "My lady... Helena... She's hurt too badly. I- I'm sorry..."

Helena ignored Claudia's words, perhaps because it took all her attention simply to stay on her feet. Her voice, when she finally spoke again, clearly showed the strain. "There's an abbey in those hills. You'll find a healer there - Rabbi Weisfelt. Bring him the hawk, tell him she belongs to me - to Helena de Navarre. He'll know what to do."

"I can't do anything like this, my lady," Claudia said, lifting her shackled hands.

Helena ordered Claudia to kneel down, even as she moved to set the hawk gently aside - the dog nosed at the bird and whined unhappily before lying down next to it. Claudia watched, then forced her attention back to Helena, dropping to her knees as ordered - the heavy chain linking her manacles stretched across the ground as she did so, and the mighty blow Helena used to break it in half reverberated clear up into Claudia's teeth.

Claudia knew exactly what Helena's next command would be before it was even uttered. "Take Goliath and ride for those hills - now!"

Knowing there was no time to argue, Claudia got to her feet and stepped toward Goliath. The charger, having reached its limit, couldn't handle Claudia's anxiety on top of its own - he flattened his ears and reared up, lashing out with large, heavy hooves. Claudia, barely leaping out of the way in time, looked to Helena for assistance handling the beast. "You're the only one who can ride him - help me!"

Helena, usually so gentle with Goliath, shouted a harsh string of commands at him. The horse quieted instantly and just stood there calmly, ears pricked forward as he waited for the next string of commands - a good thing, too, as Claudia's horribly ungainly attempt to climb into the saddle required assistance from Helena, who grabbed her by the back of her tunic and simply yanked upwards until Claudia got one of her feet into the stirrups.

Fortunately, Claudia had already learned quite a bit about riding and easily got herself settled once she was actually on Goliath's back. The second she seemed ready, Helena handed her the hawk, now wrapped up in a shirt to keep it warm - the bird seemed impossibly frail as Claudia cradled it in her thin arms.

Helena, the madness back in her eyes, had one final warning as she handed Claudia the reins. "Understand this well, Claudia. If you fail to reach that abbey - if you run off - I will hunt you for the rest of my days until I find you. And once I've found you, you will *beg* for death."

Claudia turned even paler and sicklier at the threat, but her gaze didn't waver as she looked Helena square in the eye. "I understand. I won't fail you."

Helena watched in silence as the young thief rode away with her greatest treasure, then turned to look at the dog as it began whining and crying inconsolably. "Go with them, boy - it's alright. Look after them."

The dog bolted after horse and rider at top speed, leaving Helena standing alone by the side of the road. Raising a hand to her shoulder, she felt gingerly at the arrow still lodged in it - she grunted in pain as she tore the bolt loose, but her eyes never left the trio growing smaller and smaller as they headed into the sunset.


	10. Chapter Nine

Claudia couldn't resist one last glance back over her shoulder as Goliath galloped ahead. She spared a moment to watch the dog as it raced to join them, but her concern was truly all for the increasingly distant figure of Helena de Navarre. The injured woman stood amidst the bloody, impromptu battlefield as if carved from stone, her shadow distorted by the angle of the setting sun.

Even as Claudia watched, the strength the young thief had already come to take for granted failed, and Helena sank to her knees. The dog stopped to look back to its mistress as she fell, obviously torn between its duty to her and its desire to protect its friend the hawk - unable to choose, it gave a little pained whine as it shifted helplessly in place.

Those conflicting loyalties perfectly mirrored Claudia's own, but she had no real choice - even if she hadn't somehow sensed God's hand at work in all of this, Helena's threat still rang quite clearly in her ears. Turning her attention back to the distant and rapidly darkening hills that Goliath led them toward, she squared her shoulders and steeled her resolve even as she urged the horse to go faster.

Fortunately, Goliath was well-trained enough to compensate for Claudia's lack of experience in the saddle, and didn't stint to do so - there was no trace at all of his usual prickliness, and his rider was thankful for it. With his help, Claudia somehow managed to keep herself planted firmly on Goliath's back as they raced down the road at full speed, winding up into the increasingly steep hills ahead of them.

The horse even seemed to know where they were headed, and how important it was that they get there - he led them along their chosen course with a careful deliberation and intent that seemed almost human, pacing himself to avoid the risk of foundering while maximizing their progress. Claudia was more grateful than she could say for the beast's cooperation and autonomy, as it allowed her to focus her attention on keeping the hawk as secure and comfortable as possible.

Goliath apparently shared Claudia's concern for its comrade's comfort - despite everything else he was already tasked with, the charger managed to move as smoothly as water or silk as they climbed higher and higher into the hills. Even with their collective efforts, though, the poor bird was clearly afraid and in pain - it cried out weakly just as they passed a massive stone cliff.

Claudia halted Goliath there to check over her precious cargo, doing her best to soothe and comfort the hawk while she checked it over a second and third time. The bird seemed to be holding on, but she was no healer to say so for sure. "It's okay - I've got you. We're getting you help."

The dog, who had finally caught back up with them, began to prance around and bark, and Claudia took a closer look at the towering cliff beside them. Her breath caught as she took in the ruins of an abbey on the heights above them, not quite willing to believe that they'd reached their destination so quickly and effortlessly. Still, they were all due for a bit of good luck right about now, after everything they'd been through...

The stark lines of the abbey's crumbling walls - once so imposing - were now softened by a tangled mass of ivy and other clinging vines. The only thing still completely intact was the bell tower, still standing tall as it watched over the valley like some kind of stone sentinel. Seeing that, all of Claudia's earlier doubts fled - there could hardly be two old monasteries so close by, so this had to be the place Helena had described.

The hawk shifted again, and Claudia looked down at it, alarmed at the blood staining the cloth she'd kept carefully pressed against its wound. She had no idea how much blood hawks had in them, but it was clear enough that the bird couldn't lose much more than it already had - the thought made the arrow sticking out from the tiny body look all the more cruel and menacing. Making one last attempt to comfort the poor thing, Claudia all but cooed at it. "There it is - see? It won't be much longer."

She shifted the bird a little in her arms, and almost laughed in relief as it snapped at her with its sharp beak. The resurgence of its usual cranky self, even if only in response to being painfully jostled, could had to be a good sign. "That's some gratitude for you. You better behave, or I'll tell Helena on you."

The dog let out a little bark, as if in agreement, and even Goliath gave an amused whicker. Claudia, unable to resist continuing her nervous jest, grinned a bit wider. "See? You're outnumbered. These two will even be witnesses in my defense."

Goliath didn't need any urging to get them all moving again, carefully picking his way up the narrow trail that led up to the abbey's gates. Claudia halted them there and stared anxiously at the silent walls. Birds - sparrows, she guessed - flitted in and out of the vines and ivy. That was the only sign of life thus far, and she felt suddenly fearful that rabbi might have died or simply moved on. "Hello? Is anyone there? For the love of God, I need some help out here!"

For several terrifying heartbeats, no one answered and only birdsong broke the silence. Finally, just as Claudia had given up hope, a gruff, masculine voice filled the air. "Whoever you are, this had better be good! I was finally sleeping after being awake for two straight days..."

The old man that peered blearily down at Claudia from one of the parapets certainly seemed half-asleep. His unruly salt-and-pepper hair - and even more unruly eyebrows - certainly also supported his statement, as did the rumpled state of his habit. His eyes also seemed to rove at random across the area just before the gate, jumping from object to object while never actually settling on Claudia and her bizarre retinue.

Well, he was obviously old and definitely tired, so Claudia assumed that maybe his eyesight was going too. Sighing inwardly, she called out again. "Rabbi? Rabbi Weisfelt?"

That seemed to help the old man focus, as his gaze finally settled on Claudia. It held a combination of bleariness, curiosity, and paranoia that Claudia couldn't quite take offense at. "I'm Rabbi Weisfelt. Do I know you, young man?"

Claudia shifted the hawk in her arms to offer the holy man a better view. "I was told to bring you this hawk. She's hurt."

"A hunting accident, I take it? Fine, fine, I'll take a look." Apparently, the rabbi was used to people bringing him wounded animals, though his next words as he half-muttered to himself made it clear that he didn't hold very high hopes for this particular case at first glance. "At least I'll get dinner for my trouble if it doesn't work out..."

Claudia felt a sudden surge of indignation, echoed by both the dog and by Goliath. "This hawk isn't someone's dinner! It belongs to Helena de Navarre!"

Weisfelt's eyes widened as he froze, and all trace of fatigue faded instantly as he moved to start tugging at the rope that opened the gates. "My god... Bring it inside, quickly! Quickly!"

For all of the rabbi's urgency, the gates were barely opened by the time Claudia had carefully let herself down from Goliath's back - an ungainly procedure at the best of times, and nearly impossible to pull off with the hawk cradled in her arms. Still, she managed it, grabbing for Goliath's reins once she was steady on her feet. "You wait here, boy. We have to ride back and check on Helena -"

The horse started at the sound of its mistress' name and bolted before Claudia's grip on its reins was secure enough to stop it. Claudia sighed as she watched Goliath gallop back the way they'd come, but she couldn't fault him for wanting to go to his mistress. "Just tell her I got here, okay?"

Weisfelt started yelling the second the gate was open enough to walk through. "Hurry up, boy! This is no time to slack off!"

The hawk stirred a little at all the noise, drawing Claudia back to the task at hand, and she hurried through the gate. There was a drawbridge lying open in front of the abbey's main entrance, across the courtyard from where she currently stood, and the rabbi waited impatiently on it for her, his brown monk's habit twitching as he shifted from foot to foot.

The rabbi turned to head across the bridge the instant she got close, and Claudia followed as expected. Not two steps in, though, the old man stopped and threw an arm out, almost catching her in the chest. "Walk on the left side - only the left side."

Claudia didn't see anything abnormal about the bridge, but the wood looked pretty old, and Weisfelt was taking his own advice about staying to the left. Shrugging, the thief followed his example as they both headed into the abbey. "Whatever you say, Rabbi."

The old man led them through a maze of drafty corridors and empty cells, up flights of stairs worn smooth and hollow by countless feet. Claudia wondered idly why anyone would choose to live alone in the ruined abbey, but had to admit that it did hold a certain charm even in its run-down state - she'd probably enjoy exploring it, were the situation not so dire.

Finally, the rabbi led them into a small room deep in the abbey. The increasing light as Weisfelt rushed to light some candles revealed sparse but comfortable furnishings - a plain, solid table and its accompanying chairs, a cot covered with old but well-maintained sheepskins. Claudia also spotted a few personal items - books, quills and ink, and a few bits of clothing - and realized that this must be the rabbi's own private quarters.

She barely had time to ponder this fact before the holy man was ordering her around again - this time, though, it was with the practiced, decisive authority of an experienced healer. "Lay the bird there, on the bed."

Claudia did exactly as ordered, setting the bird down on the furs as carefully as she could. The dog, who had padded silently alongside them the whole time, whined a little as it snuffled at its injured friend. It then backed away quickly, somewhat chastened, as the bird snapped at its nose - even under the circumstances, Claudia had to smile a little at the familiar exchange.

Her amusement was short-lived, however, as Rabbi Weisfelt started snapping out orders yet again - though at least this time he included the dog. "Now get out - both of you."

Claudia was about to protest when the dog did it for her - the usually placid animal suddenly raised its hackles and growled its refusal at the rabbi. Weisfelt, seemingly unperturbed, just rolled his eyes. "Fine. Fine. You can stay - you, out, now!"

It was Claudia's turn to roll her eyes, but she did as she was told - no sense in delaying the poor bird's treatment just because she felt like being stubborn. Besides, she had a feeling that the dog would watch over its friend every bit as carefully as any human. Not that any of that kept her from being seriously annoyed when Weisfelt slammed the door closed almost on her heels and then locked it from the inside.

With nothing to do but wait, Claudia sank down to the stone floor of the hallway and tried to get comfortable. Once that was done - or as done as it was going to get on a cold stone floor - she pulled the dagger from her boot and used its tip to start picking the locks on her manacles. She was a pretty good lock pick, but shackles weren't exactly her forte - the practice certainly wouldn't hurt her.

She heard Weisfelt move around in the room, then heard him pause by the door as he addressed the wounded hawk. "Helena was right - I can help you. I'll have to leave you for a little while, though - don't be afraid."

He stepped out of the room then, eyes locking with Claudia's, and she saw an unexpected warmth there that made her decide he was clearly a kinder, gentler soul than he pretended to be. She was still somewhat hampered by her as-yet-unpicked manacles, but she couldn't resist offering to help in any way she could. "Is there anything I can do, Rabbi?"

"I'm afraid not, boy," Weisfelt replied brusquely, but there was a genuine compassion and understanding beneath it. That still didn't prevent him from making a show of closing the door and locking it from the outside before he hurried off down the hall in search of who knew what. Claudia, for her part, just shrugged, and went back to working the locks on her shackles.

The sun continued to set as he worked, and he couldn't help pausing repeatedly to look westward, concern written in his face and his eyes as the sun finally dipped below the horizon, leaving the sky streaked with a ruddy afterglow that reflected ominously off the clouds. Fortunately, Artie had had long practice in not letting his emotions detract from whatever task was at hand - even distracted as he was, he quickly gathered everything he needed to treat the injured bird waiting back in his cell.

Back in the cold stone hallway outside that cell, Claudia had finally managed to pick the second manacle. It dropped to the floor with a clang even more satisfying than the first, just as the last of the light fled, and Claudia rubbed at her wrists with a grin, grateful to be free of the added weight. Then she rose to her feet and turned to stare speculatively at the lock on the door behind her.

She ran her fingers over the lock, tracing its outline as she considered its age and potential complexity. Finally, she took up her dagger and slipped it into the mechanism, shifting it around carefully until she had everything aligned the way she wanted - in a matter of seconds, her task was complete and the lock clicked open. Eager to check on her friends - too much so to wonder at herself for giving a pair of half-wild animals that label - she quietly but quickly opened the door and stepped through it.

Whatever she had expected to see, the sight that greeted her was not it, and she froze mid-step.

The hawk and the dog were nowhere to be seen. In their place stood Helena's friends, the strange man and woman that Claudia kept running into every time Helena disappeared on her. The man was wearing an oversized set of tunic and pants, no doubt borrowed from the rabbi, and he stood beside the bed, drawing the furs up over the woman who now lay in the hawk's place there. The woman, looking even paler than before, had a suspiciously familiar crossbow bolt jutting from one shoulder that Claudia tried very hard not to notice.

As if sensing the scrutiny, the woman's eyes flew open and settled on Claudia. They widened slightly as she recognized the young thief, then narrowed again in pain as she tried to raise her head - a pain reflected in her voice as she finally spoke. "Helena - where is she? Is she-"

The man moved to still his friend, but Claudia could tell that she wouldn't stop until she had her answers. "Helena is - she'll be fine, my lady. You need to rest now."

The man turned to look at Claudia then, face an odd mixture of gratitude and wariness as the injured woman relaxed a little. "What happened?"

Claudia swallowed hard at the weight of that stare, and at the weight of the cold, terrifying truth outlined by her answer to that one simple question. "There was a fight with some of the Bishop's Guard. It was horrible, but Helena defeated them all - I've never seen her fight like that before... I tried to help, but there wasn't much I could do - I only made it worse, actually, because the hawk got hurt."

Claudia's voice dropped to a whisper as she forced the next few words out through a throat constricted by fear. "But you both know that, don't you?"

The man just continued watching Claudia, but the woman finally closed her eyes and lay back against the pillows. "Yes. We know."

Some impulse Claudia couldn't name or understand drew her closer to the bed, and she stood staring down at the injured woman. She'd never seen anyone quite so beautiful or otherworldly - it was heartbreaking to see her suffer this way. Finally, Claudia couldn't hold back the question she'd wanted to ask since the moment they'd met. "Are you spirit - or are you flesh? Are you... real?"

The woman merely turned her head away, but not before Claudia spotted the tears filling her eyes. Her answer was barely audible. "I - I am sorrow..."

Claudia could have sworn the man flinched at the woman's words, but it happened so fast she couldn't be sure - all she knew was that she seemed to feel the same need he did to comfort his friend. Even as she tried, though, a lifetime of practice lying suddenly deserted her, and words of any sort refused to form. Then the door swung open, and Rabbi Weisfelt stood there staring at them all in what looked very much like astonishment, confusion, or both.

"How did you-?" Weisfelt began, looking pointedly at Claudia, but then just dropped the question as he started moving to treat his patients. Handing the man a handful of herbs and a spare mortar and pestle off the table, the rabbi shoved him in Claudia's direction. "Get him out here, and treat that head wound. I'll make some willow bark tea later if he needs it."

Both Claudia and the man started arguing with the holy man simultaneously, words indistinguishable as they talked over each other. Finally, Weisfelt raised his voice, cutting through the din to silence them both. "Enough! I know you want to help, but I have work to do! Now do as you're told and get out - both of you!"

There was no arguing with him, and Claudia ended up out in the hallway with the man - whose name she had never thought to ask - as Weisfelt slammed and locked the door yet again. At least they'd been allowed to light a pair of torches first so they could see...

The man excused himself, saying something about getting some fresh water to go with the herbs the rabbi had given him. Still dazed and a little numb, Claudia just nodded - once he was out of sight, she leaned back against the cold stone wall and slid down it until she was sitting again on the equally cold stone floor.

The rabbi's voice carried through the door, just like previously, and Claudia still had the wherewithal to smile a little at the kindness in his voice as he spoke to his patient. "I know you're angry and afraid, but I can help. God didn't bring you here just to let you die..."

Suddenly feeling an overwhelming need for fresh air, Claudia pushed to her feet and began to wander down the corridor. She didn't plan to go far - her erstwhile nurse would be back at any moment - but she didn't have to. There was a garden just a little ways down, close enough that she'd hear if they called for her, extending out into a larger yard that held some chickens, a few goats, and even a mule.

There was an old, battered work table nearby with bits and pieces of some unfinished project on it, and Claudia's ever-curious mind drew her over to investigate. Those bits and pieces turned out to be a bunch of apples and oranges, all arranged in rings like some sort of puzzle. Snatching up an apple, she polished it on her tunic as she studied the arrangement in front of her - it meant absolutely nothing to her, of course, but it kept her mind at least partially occupied.

Footsteps broke the silence a little while later as the man, having retrieved the water he needed, tracked her down. He handed her a damp cloth, then took a seat near her and began working the mortar and pestle in silence while she cleaned herself up, allowing Claudia the chance to speak first. When she didn't, he took upon himself to make conversation. "That head wound doesn't look too bad - I bet your head hurts, though, huh?"

Claudia nodded warily, afraid he was referring to being tricked by her the other night, but the man just gave her a wry grin. "I know the feeling - I can't even tell you how many times Helena's clocked me a good one during training. I'm Pete, by the way."

It wasn't at all difficult to imagine Helena deliberately whacking someone upside the head for being sloppy while training, and Claudia couldn't help returning the smile. She didn't let her guard down completely, though. "I'm Joshua."

The words felt wrong even as she spoke them, and Claudia suddenly realized that the last few days spent living as herself had changed her enough that the lie no longer fit the way it once had. Still, it fooled Pete well enough that he didn't question it as he started applying the mashed herbs to her temple - she knew it was far too soon for the poultice to have any effect, but it seemed to be helping already anyway.

That may have had as much to do with Pete as with whatever concoction Weisfelt had had him make. He had rough soldier's hands, exactly as expected, but there was something almost brotherly in his touch and his demeanor that she couldn't help responding to - it was too much like what she imagined the real Joshua would have been like if he'd lived.

It was far too morbid a thought for her taste just then, so Claudia allowed her grumbling stomach to distract her. Taking a bite of the apple she'd snagged, she let Pete draw her into idle conversation - neither of them was paying any real attention to anything the other said, but that wasn't the point. It was all about distracting themselves from worrying about the injured woman down the hall.

They shared an anxious glance as that same woman's low cry of pain filtered through to the garden - the rabbi at work treating the arrow wound - and Claudia's heart almost broke at the mixture of emotions that slid across Pete's face before he could hide them. She'd never really cared about anyone else in her life, and her unexpected empathy caught her by surprise.

Back in his cell, Arthur Weisfelt bustled around a smaller worktable, carefully grinding herbs with a pestle even as he kept a constant watch on the injured woman lying on the bed. Her eyes - he'd never forget their peculiar shade of moss green - were closed, but he could still picture everything they'd hold if they were open and looking at him. In truth, he probably deserved every bit of it.

A sudden flare of guilt made him stop and check on his patient again, even though nothing had changed. The cool, damp cloth he'd just placed on her feverish forehead was still there, and the careful incisions he'd made to help remove the arrow continued to bleed, though not enough to cause added concern - still, the brief pause stilled his emotions and let him focus again.

Turning back to his work with the herbs, Artie held the mortar over a candle flame to warm the poultice he'd concocted. A wolf howled mournfully somewhere out in the night, and he watched his patient twitch in response out of the corner of his eye. She didn't wake, though, which probably all for the best - even if it went perfectly, this was going to be a bloody, painful process.

Finally, the poultice was heated properly, and he moved to pack it as gently as he could around the arrow - the woman stirred as he did so, and the flash of happiness in her eyes at a familiar face in that moment pained him as badly as the arrow wound he was treating. It rapidly faded into the anger and accusation he'd expected, of course, but she let him continue without protest.

He hesitated once the poultice was in place, unwilling to inflict more pain on the woman before him, until she herself reminded him of his duty. "Do it, old man."

Wanting to spare her the ghastly sight of removing the arrow, Arthur covered her eyes with one hand as he reached for the bolt with the other, not at all liking how thin and frail she seemed. Even injured and weak, though, she was every bit as strong as he remembered - she removed his hand from her eyes, and reached out with her good arm to brace herself against his own much sturdier shoulder.

There was a long moment as they exchanged glances - a questioning look from him, a nod of readiness from her - and then Arthur wrapped his hand around what was left of the arrow shaft and pulled with all his strength.

Out at the table in the garden, Claudia and Pete jumped to their feet as a scream shattered the night. Once it faded, the silence left in its wake was so complete that they could both hear the sound of Claudia's apple slipping from numb, shaking fingers to fall to the ground...

Miles away, safely ensconced within the walls of castle Aquila, the Bishop bolted upright in his canopied bed, pulled from sleep by a sharp, stabbing pain in his shoulder. At first, he stared uncomprehendingly into the shaft of light destroying the quiet darkness of his private chambers - then he touched a hand to his shoulder, seeking a reason for the terrible pain there and finding none. There was no blood, no protruding blade - there wasn't even a wound.

That realization allowed him to escape from the daze of waking unexpectedly, and he was able to understand finally that it had only been a dream. Even so, he clutched at the silk sheets and embroidered quilts for a moment, before wiping the sweat from his forehead on the sleeve of his nightclothes. Once his eyes fully adjusted to the light, there was no doubting that he was in his own bed, safe within his own walls.

The source of the light also became obvious - a young acolyte stood in the doorway, wide-eyed and half-frozen with fear. "Forgive me, Your Grace. You wanted to be told when the wolf-hunter arrived. You said to bring him directly to you."

He nodded, spotting a bulky figure hovering in the hallway beyond the boy. Throwing the bedclothes aside, he gestured for some candles to be lit as he pulled on a dressing gown and settled himself into a nearby chair. The young novice, still clearly terrified, hurried out as soon as his task was complete, advising the Bishop's secretive visitor that he would be received now.

The Bishop, as always, had to fight to conceal his surprise at the preternaturally large man that suddenly stepped into the meager light. The wolf hunter was a massive, unkempt beast of a man - thick, scraggly hair and an equally thick and scraggly beard did little to improve his brutish features or hide the scar running down one side of his face. Dark, cruel eyes dared the Bishop to say something as he watched the holy man take in his rough wolf's fur clothing and wolf's tooth necklace with thinly-veiled contempt.

"Welcome, hunter," the Bishop said, very much pleased to see his guest despite his seeming disdain for the brute. "How have you fared at your task?"


	11. Chapter Ten

The old, crumbling abbey lay peacefully under the moon's light, exactly as it had across the centuries since it had been built. Drawn by some pull it could not voice or explain, a solitary black wolf limped to a nearby ridge, and stood gazing at the ruins from among the trees. Dried blood matted its inky fur at shoulder and flank - even so, it eased itself down onto the ground, ignoring its injuries as it started a vigil it didn't even comprehend. Knowing only that it felt alone and strangely bereft, it raised its head and howled its loss to the skies as the bitterly cold wind swirled around it.

Safely tucked inside the abbey's nominally warmer walls, Claudia sat on a crumbling terrace step beside the bonfire Pete had built. An uncomfortable silence reigned as they all sipped at their drinks - Claudia at the bitter willow bark tea she'd been given for her aching head, Pete and Weisfelt at the large mugs of ale Weisfelt had poured them both. The two men froze, then glanced off into the night apprehensively, as the wolf continued its howling - watching them both across the flames, Claudia was dead certain that they weren't just afraid of wolves.

"That's her, isn't it?" Claudia asked finally. "That's Helena."

Neither man answered, but Claudia wouldn't be deterred. "That wolf - somehow, it's Helena."

That notion made the incessant howling a little less frightening to Claudia, though no one else seemed to find the topic so reassuring. Weisfelt exchanged a glance with Pete, then refilled both their mugs of ale before turning to scowl at Claudia. "Drink your tea, boy, and quit asking questions you don't need answered."

Claudia just made a scoffing noise. "Whatever this is, I'm as deep in it now as the rest of you. I think I have the right to a few answers."

Pete shot her a grin - genuine enough, though it didn't entirely reach his eyes - but Weisfelt just stared at her long and hard, as if weighing her worthiness. She'd told them both her part of the strange, strange story - leaving out only the fact that her name was Claudia, not Joshua - and felt that having the rest of the tale explained to her wasn't an unreasonable request. By risking her own life to protect Helena - and taking the risk of bringing the hawk here to Weisfelt - she'd *earned* the right to know what the hell was going on.

It gave her the resolve she needed to stare the old man down, and Weisfelt finally gave in. He slumped wearily for a moment, then crossed with his drink to sit by the fire, taking his seat with a heavy sigh of resignation. Claudia, knowing she'd won, allowed herself the most fleeting of smug grins as she settled herself in to hear the rabbi's story.

Weisfelt shared another glance with Pete - though nothing was actually said, it was clear that *something* had been conveyed between them - then looked back toward his room, where his patient lay sleeping. "Her name is Michaela D'Anjou, but she's gone by Myka all her life. Her father Warren - the Comte D'Anjou - was a bitter, angry little man who died slaughtering infidels at Antioch. His wife and two daughters came to Aquila afterward to live with Myka's aunt Jane and her two children, Jeanne and Peter."

Claudia looked to Pete in surprise. She'd assumed - well, she wasn't sure what she'd assumed, other than that he and Myka were somehow together. In a strange way, though, things made more sense understanding that they were cousins. A corner of Pete's mouth twitched upward just a little, as if he knew what she was thinking and found it amusing - if so, it was the only thing about the story that he seemed to find funny.

Weisfelt smiled unexpectedly, a wistful, nostalgic expression that completely changed his features. "I'll never forget the first time I saw her. She was hardly more than a girl, but she was already-"

"The most beautiful and precious thing in the world," Claudia finished for him, eyes going slightly distant as she recalled that first bizarre meeting in the run-down barn.

Both men were staring at Claudia when she finally returned to reality a moment later. Pete was grinning at her, eyes crinkling in amusement - it reminded her very much of the dog she'd known him as until just that night. Even Weisfelt was smiling, a twinkle in his eye, and his voice held an amused sympathy. "You too? Well, we were all in love with her in our own way - including His Grace, the Bishop of Aquila."

Claudia's eyes widened at the revelation. "The Bishop?! He was in love with her?"

The sudden flare of anger from Pete was almost tangible, the easy affability of just a moment prior disappearing as his face darkened and his fists clenched involuntarily. Weisfelt studied him for a heartbeat or two, as if fearing he'd lose control and lash out, but took the story back up once Pete motioned for him to continue. "If a man like the Bishop can love, then yes - he loved Myka D'Anjou. It was innocent enough at first - she was his goddaughter, and he doted on her like his own child - but something changed, and that love twisted into lust and obsession."

Claudia considered what little she knew of the Bishop and his reputation. If he'd ever been a true man of God, he wasn't anymore - he'd given himself over to greed and lechery while his people slowly wasted away under his so-called care. He taxed everyone until they starved, then ordered them hung for stealing the food they needed to survive. The man was a monster, no doubt about it, but even he had seen the spark of light in Myka's soul and been drawn to it - maybe he'd somehow sensed that she was everything he would never be.

Still, it had all gone horribly wrong somehow, leading to whatever it was that Claudia had found herself stuck in the middle of. "So what... happened?"

It took both Pete and Weisfelt, trading off as they went, to tell the full story. It was a tale fit for any one of the troubadour's ballads that Claudia loved so much - if she hadn't been personally caught up in it, she'd never even have believed it could be real.

Things had started out happily enough. Myka D'Anjou had lost her father as a girl, yes, but the loss had actually improved the quality of her life. Life in Aquila suited her, and Pete, Helena, and Charles - who'd grown up together - had immediately adopted her into their circle.

Pete's sister Jeanne, who was much older, and Myka's sister Tracy, who was much younger, had apparently found their own respective sets of friends more suited to their age, but they were all still a rather large extended family. It was never perfect, of course, but it was very, very close.

Claudia could picture it, too. It was surprisingly easy to envision them all as just a few years younger than herself - even Helena, who Pete described as gangly and awkward until the sword lessons she'd wheedled out of her father helped her past it. Pete, for his part, didn't seem as if he'd changed much at all over the years.

Weisfelt, not pleased with the conversational topic to begin with, quickly lost patience listening to Pete and Claudia banter during Pete's portion of the tale. Claudia, though tempted to say something rude when the rabbi started grumbling, nonetheless forced herself to be quiet as she listened to the rest of the story.

The Bishop had been named Tracy's godfather as well, and he doted on both girls, but Myka was always clearly his favorite. When she came of age to marry, he used his considerable influence to make her the most advantageous match possible - a young man from Italy named Samuel de Martino. His family was only minor nobility, but they were very well-respected and were wealthy enough to ensure Myka's continued comfort.

Myka fought the notion at first, but was convinced to at least meet her prospective suitor before passing final judgment. She didn't regret agreeing to do so - Sam was kind, and handsome, and he and Myka fell in love with each other almost at first sight. Pete and Charles liked him immediately, and even the somewhat dubious Helena eventually came around - anyone who mattered that much to Myka mattered to her - and the quartet soon became a quintet.

It was a beautiful wedding, and an equally beautiful marriage. Unfortunately, it wasn't fated to have an equally beautiful ending - Sam was killed during a skirmish, helping defend a nearby town against some raiding mercenaries. Myka was inconsolable, and for a time they were terrified that she'd follow her husband to the grave, either from a broken heart or by her own hand. Somehow, though, they'd gotten her through the worst of her grief, and she'd found the strength to heal.

Myka had been a lovely young girl before Sam's death, but she emerged from his loss a beautiful woman, tempered and refined by the effort to simply keep going day after day. It was at this point that the Bishop's feelings toward her apparently changed - he'd viewed her as a child before, and treated her as if she were his own daughter, but the marked change in her appearance and demeanor suddenly made her desirable in a way she should never have been to him.

The moment Myka's mourning period ended - the Bishop wasn't fool enough to defy that particular convention - he started sending her letters and poems. The pretense of trying to comfort and cheer her held for a little while, but it quickly became apparent that the Bishop's intent was less than innocent. It wasn't entirely unheard of for high-ranking clergy to take mistresses, and might even have been seen as a good match in some cases, but Myka was completely appalled.

Not quite sure how to handle the situation - the man was more of a father to her than her own had ever been - Myka did her best to let the Bishop down gently. She sent back his letters and poems and gifts, explaining frankly but gently why she could never even consider such an offer. The Bishop acquiesced without much protest - odd, for a man so used to getting whatever he wanted - and things went back to what they had been for, or as close to it as was possible.

If a certain strange glint still seemed to come into the Bishop's eye from time to time as he watched Myka, so be it - they all followed Myka's lead and ignored their unease. There was plenty to divert their attention elsewhere: Helena had just gotten herself promoted to Captain of the Guard right alongside Charles, after a dazzling display of skill and sheer moxie, and Pete had just been formally assigned as Myka's bodyguard and protector.

It was a heady time for all of them - even Myka, who suddenly seemed to shrug off her grief and bloom again. Pete missed the signs at first, but he wasn't oblivious for long - he'd seen his cousin like this before and knew exactly what it meant. He couldn't immediately figure out who had stolen her heart away - not that he was unhappy someone had -so he sat her down and asked her about it directly. Her answer was most unexpected.

Claudia's first thought was that Myka had fallen for Charles. Then she thought of Helena - proud, angry, bitter Helena, made of steel as strong as her sword but reduced to tears by a dress and a faded letter - and suddenly understood. Despite having every intention of staying silent, she couldn't help exclaiming aloud as the pieces started falling into place. "Helena! She fell in love with Helena!"

Then the confusion set in as the picture fully resolved itself. "But - they're both women..."

Pete just grinned at Claudia. He also laughed at her a little, though there was no malice in it. "It kinda surprised me, too, but I'm pretty sure Love doesn't give a damn what anyone thinks."

Helena, apparently, had secretly been in love with Myka for years - well, not so secretly where Pete and Charles were concerned, since she'd confessed as much to them ages ago. Myka's marriage to Sam de Martino had been difficult for her, to say the least, though in the end she'd honestly been happy just to see Myka happy.

Myka returning Helena's feelings had been totally unexpected - most of all for Myka, who had a little trouble reconciling her attraction to Helena with the Church's teachings. The two women had always been very close, perhaps even unusually so, but Myka had never really noticed anything romantic about her feelings for her best friend - at least, not until something had just... changed one day several weeks back.

She'd still had no idea that Helena returned her feelings, but Pete had known it wasn't his place to tell her. He focused instead on his cousin's lingering confusion and sent her to talk to a friend of theirs, a young priest who didn't feel that right and wrong could be carved permanently in stone.

Whatever the young priest said to Myka, it resolved her doubts. She and Helena admitted their feelings for each other, and indulged them as much as they dared. That wasn't very far, sadly, as it was quite clear that public acceptance wouldn't be forthcoming any time soon - Myka wasn't willing to risk Helena's military career, or their respective reputations, and Helena didn't have much room to argue with Myka's logic.

Helena tried, though - they argued about it night and day until the young priest stepped in again and helped them sort it out. It wasn't easy for the two women to decide that hiding their relationship was the best thing, but they managed to find a certain happiness anyway. They didn't dare let things go any farther than holding hands and stealing the occasional kiss - even in private, lest they get careless - but they seemed to enjoy the tension, and Pete and Charles turned chaperoning them into something of a game.

Still, the change in Myka was obvious to everyone, though no one really tried to dig too deeply into it for fear of damaging her new-found happiness. Those who needed to know understood what had happened, and those who did not saw only that Myka was happy and whole again - it was as close to idyllic as the small circle of friends would ever get, and far more dangerous than any of them had realized.

Like a bee drawn to a sweetly-scented flower, the Bishop's attention was drawn back to Myka - the letters and gifts started up again, greater in number and more disturbing in tone. Myka was even more unsettled by it than she had been the first time, but begged them all to let her handle it - they reluctantly agreed, though keeping silent was almost more than Helena could manage.

The breaking point was as ugly as they'd expected - though thankfully still not as ugly as it could have been. Myka had agreed to meet her godfather for tea, hoping to talk some sense into him, and refused to cancel even when other pressing matters left her without any of her usual protectors. Her attempts to rebuff the Bishop were poorly received, and only the entirely unexpected arrival of her friend the young priest - Fate protecting the foolishly hopeful, perhaps - had gotten Myka out of there unscathed.

Well, not entirely unscathed - the Bishop had struck Myka across the face, leaving an ugly mark that spoke louder than any words. The rage in the room as Myka's friends gathered was prodigious - it was probably for the best that Myka was in her room at the time, sleeping after being given something to settle her nerves. Even the young priest, normally the calm voice of reason, was livid, and Pete and Charles barely managed to contain their own tempers long enough to help Helena contain hers.

It was obvious that something had to be done - the problem was that their options boiled down to either getting the Bishop to back off of his own volition or just getting rid of him completely. None of them - except perhaps Helena - were quite ready to commit murder if other solutions remained, so the young priests suggested one last attempt at an intervention.

The Bishop had a colleague - another holy man from outside the Church - whose counsel he valued highly. The priest knew him in passing as well, and respected him - if anyone at all could talk sense back into the Bishop, it would be him. It went without saying that none of them had particularly high hopes in that regard, but they had no real choice but to try.

Myka, who'd known the man in question since childhood, supported the plan once they filled her in, and they met with him a few days later - he seemed a bit dubious as they explained the situation, but there was no denying the bruise across Myka's cheekbone or the fear in her eyes. He was convinced, however, that reason could still prevail and agreed to speak with his old friend as soon as possible.

Both men suddenly fell silent then, drawing Claudia out of the story and back to the present. Pete was glaring at Weisfelt with a raw, undisguised anger that bordered on hate. "Tell him the rest of it. Tell him what you did."

It didn't take Claudia long to make the connection - she'd half-suspected it already - and she turned to stare at Weisfelt. "You were the holy man they asked to help. What did you *do*?"

"I made a mistake," the rabbi said heavily, suddenly seeming to feel every one of his many years. "God forgive me, I made a mistake."

Weisfelt, though he believed the quartet seeking his help, had also immediately noticed the bond between Myka and Helena. Both women readily admitted it when confronted directly, swearing that they'd done nothing untoward, but that wasn't enough to settle the rabbi's misgivings - fearing the young women were somehow being led astray, he told their secret to the Bishop when he went to talk with him.

To be absolutely fair, Weisfelt had meant it all for the best, and no one could ever possibly have predicted what would happen next.

Whatever had been allowing the Bishop to keep even a modicum of calm and control in regards to his goddaughter was burnt to cinders over the following night by his rage and jealousy. By noon the next day, he'd given way to total insanity: he summoned a handful of his most loyal guards and ordered them to take his goddaughter into custody. Helena was to be killed on sight, along with Charles and Pete if they offered any resistance.

The men he picked were as twisted as they were loyal, because not one of them argued. Word got back to Helena's second-in-command, though - the same William Wolcott who had died at the tavern - and he took the grave risk of slipping away to warn his commander.

Walter Sykes, leading the handful of men chosen by the Bishop, was never able to prove afterward that Wolcott in particular had warned his quarry - Charles and Helena had forbidden Wolcott to endanger himself by openly aiding them - but he had his suspicions. It had only been a matter of time, really, before Sykes managed to find some way to be rid of him.

Wolcott hadn't wanted to leave, but he knew he had to be alive once this was all over to help sort it out. Still, his warning alone had been enough to save them all - as had the surprising number of loyal men who'd stayed to fight in defiance of Charles' and Helena's orders. Sykes and his squad lost that initial skirmish, but the cost was high on both sides and it was a very near thing.

It was also just the beginning of the bloodshed. Many guards - some evil, some just misguided and misinformed, some loyally defending their commanders no matter what - died as Myka, Helena, Pete, and Charles fled from the city and into the hills. Finally, though, the quartet escaped the Bishop's Guard and made their way to the small country church run by their friend the priest.

They all stayed at the church that night - the last night any of the four of them would spend fully human.

The horrific loss of life did nothing at all to sway or stop the Bishop - if anything, it drove him even deeper into his madness. When Sykes brought him word that his targets had escaped, the Bishop destroyed his own chambers and then slipped away into his private chapel to rage further.

It must have been there that the idea came to him. Perhaps he'd been corrupted despite himself by some outside influence, or perhaps he'd always been corrupt, but the bargain he made was horrifying. In exchange for his very soul, the dark powers he called on cursed his goddaughter and her friends.

It was possible that Charles and Pete had not been intentionally targeted, but they'd probably never know. The curse was cast, and it struck at sundown - Helena and Charles found themselves transformed into wolves, remembering only enough of their human selves to vaguely recognize their loved ones.

That first night had been almost unbearable, not understanding what had happened or if it was permanent. Then the sun rose again, and the full cruelty of the curse was revealed - Helena and her brother reverted to their human form, but the curse jumped to Pete and Myka. Pete, ever the faithful protector, turned into a dog even as Myka turned into a hawk.

The endless string of days that followed allowed them to clarify what had happened, but also made it perfectly clear that there was no escaping it. Now, with Charles long dead of a fever, there was every possibility that the curse could never be broken.

Silence fell again, even more absolute than before. The wolf - Helena - had finally ceased its howling, and the only thing disturbing the unnatural quiet was the bonfire crackling and popping as Pete diverted his anger by tending to it. Claudia, overwhelmed by the scope of the tragedy laid out before her, just stared into the flames for a long moment before getting to her feet.

Weisfelt's eyes never left the redhead, following her every movement as she turned away to stare out into the darkness. "That's the tragic tale you were so eager to learn, little thief. I hope it was worth it..."

Claudia didn't turn back or respond, even as she heard the old man stomp away angrily. She didn't know if it was worth it - she couldn't have gone on much longer not knowing the truth, but she wasn't sure she could live with knowing it, either. Pete shifted restlessly somewhere behind her, echoing her discomfort, but didn't wander off like she would have expected him to.

Instead, he joined her in silently scanning the trees for Helena. When he finally spoke, it was almost as if he was talking to himself. "They can almost touch, you know - at sunset and sunrise, when they change. There's this one split second when they're caught in between and they're both human again, but it never lasts long enough."

Claudia tried to picture enduring that torture twice a day, and couldn't see how it was possible to survive that kind of pain. Just the thought of it was enough to make her eyes sting with tears in a way the rest of the story hadn't.

"Always together," she murmured softly, quoting a favorite old ballad. "Eternally apart."

Somehow, after having seen it first hand, it wasn't quite so exciting or romantic anymore...

In an unused storeroom deep inside Aquila Castle - the better to avoid prying eyes - the Bishop stood staring at a pile of wolf pelts, eyes unreadable as he scanned that pile for the specific one the wolf hunter had been hired to bring him. The dim light made it hard to tell, but none of them seemed quite right.

Even so, the Bishop was not about to risk that pelt escaping him like its owner had. He unlatched the metal base of his crosier with a slippered toe, and it slid back with a soft click, revealing a gleaming, razor-sharp blade at its tip.

Using the length and leverage of the staff, he began sifting through the furs the wolf hunter had brought him - he moved deftly but patiently at first, becoming increasingly frenzied and impatient as each pelt proved a disappointment.

That focused intensity was enough to make even the wolf hunter wary – determining discretion to be the better part of valor, though, he simply stood by in silence and let his employer examine his wares.

Finally, the Bishop looked up at him accusingly, eyes blazing. "These are useless, every last one of them!"

The hunter - still wary but not particularly perturbed - just shrugged his shoulders before answering in his cold, gruff voice. "I can't kill every wolf in France, Your Grace. My traps are full."

It took a moment, and near-Herculean effort, but the Bishop finally forced himself back to some semblance of calm so that he could think rationally. The hunter was right - he couldn't be expected to kill every wolf in France in hopes of catching Helena de Navarre. There was only one way the brute could be sure to catch the right wolf, but revealing too much to the man was risky.

Choosing his words carefully, the Bishop began to elaborate. "There is a woman."

The hunter just looked at him blankly. "Your Grace?"

Even now, Myka d'Anjou's face - his goddaughter's face - still haunted him. "There is a woman - a beautiful woman, fair of complexion, with dark hair and eyes the color of moss. She travels by night, and only by night - the moon is her sun. Her name is Myka."

Something in the way the Bishop said that name - like some kind of prayer - disturbed the wolf hunter more than anything else he'd seen so far. He couldn't say why, though, so he continued to hold his tongue and waited for his employer to finish speaking.

"Find the woman and you will find the wolf," the Bishop snapped, suddenly losing patience. "The wolf I want dead - the wolf who... loves her."

The ghostly image of another face swam before the Bishop's eyes - this one hated instead of loved - and he stalked out of the room without another word.

The wolf hunter, for his part, just gathered up his wares and prepared to continue his task. He wasn't being paid to wonder why a love-sick old man wanted some woman's pet killed.


	12. Chapter Eleven

_C...l...a...u..._

Claudia grinned to herself, feeling an unfamiliar surge of pride as she wrote out the letters that spelled her name - her real name, not the one she had stolen from her brother.

"I'm impressed. You have better handwriting than I do." Father Stephen's voice unexpectedly broke the silence Claudia had been sitting in for the last hour or so, and Claudia barely managed to keep from scratching a long line across the scraps of paper she had begged off Rabbi Weisfelt.

The priest's blue eyes crinkled at her, amused but still apologetic. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."

Claudia had instantly taken to Father Stephen - or just Steve, as he preferred to be called - the instant the priest had arrived in response to Weisfelt's letter about Myka. The rapport had been mutual, and the two already behaved much like brother and sister, even after just a few days - it had been much the same with Pete, actually, though the two relationships were already quite different.

It had been a week now since Claudia had turned up at Rabbi Weisfelt's doorstep with a wounded hawk in her arms. Myka, long since out of any real danger from her injuries, was healing remarkably fast - a side effect of shifting form twice a day - and there wasn't much to do now but sit and watch just to make sure nothing went wrong.

Steve, somehow, had sensed Claudia's longing for the sort of education that he and Weisfelt shared, and had generously offered to finish teaching her her letters. Touched by the offer, Claudia had chosen to reveal her one last secret to the others - much to her surprise, they hadn't had much of a reaction to the revelation, though Weisfelt had given a tiny smile that could almost be taken as approval of her cleverness in maintaining her disguise.

The Rabbi - Claudia still couldn't call him Artie like Pete and Steve - had improved upon Steve's offer by beginning Claudia's training in the basics of healing. She wouldn't ever be the healer he was, but she now knew something about how to tend the injuries Helena and Pete would suffer most often. It made Claudia feel capable and... useful, in a way she hadn't expected.

Her lessons with Steve were her favorite, though, even after just a handful of days. She found that she could talk with him in a way that she couldn't quite do with Pete or the Rabbi - she'd also never encountered a priest who was so approachable about his faith, or so willing to explain things, and they often discussed God and religion for hours on end.

Today was no different, as Claudia finally felt comfortable enough to broach the one question that had been weighing on her mind since she'd first heard Helena and Myka's story. "So I was thinking... The Church says that only men and women should be together, but you helped Helena and Myka when they ran from the Bishop. Isn't that... wrong somehow?"

Steve fell silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts, then gave her another one of his smiles. "Well, I married them, so I'd have to say I don't think it is."

Claudia blinked in surprise at his frankness, and Steve chuckled. "The Church tries to serve God the best way it can, Claudia, but it's made up of people. Sometimes it gets things wrong."

He hesitated then, growing unusually serious, but continued on. "I have a certain... understanding of what Helena and Myka were going through, and I don't believe that love is wrong just because it isn't a man and woman."

Claudia's eyes widened as his meaning sank in. "Is that why you joined the Church?"

Steve just laughed as he shook his head, but there was no mockery in either gesture. "I joined the Church because I wanted to serve God. It has nothing to do with the fact that I'm attracted to men instead of women."

Claudia let out a little huff of air, and ran her hands through her hair as her thoughts suddenly grew knotted and tangled. "I don't understand. If the Church is there to tell us what's right, but they can still be wrong like that, how are we supposed to know what to do?"

"I asked my mother the same question once," Steve replied, pulling out the chair next to her. "Have you ever heard of the fruits of the spirit?"

When Claudia just shook her head, Steve continued explaining. "Saint Paul was often asked the same question - how to tell right from wrong - and he had a pretty simple thought on how to tell if you were living a good life. Doing things that are good and right brings positive things into your life - things like love, joy, patience, and self-control. Doing things that are wrong will bring bad things into your life - hate, jealousy, conflict..."

That actually made a lot of sense to Claudia, vaguely heretical as it was to consider. "If Myka and Helena had just been left alone, their love would have been a good thing - it made them better, happier, and didn't hurt anyone."

Steve's approving smile made Claudia all but glow with pride. "Exactly. Judge whether something is good or bad by looking at what effect it has on the world, not by what someone in authority tells you it is."

The rest of Claudia's academic lesson passed in relative silence as she let Steve's spiritual one sink in. She had the random thought that all the things she'd done wrong - like lying and stealing - might not be so bad after all if they had been meant to help her wind up here, helping her strange new friends, but it was all still a little too confusing to linger on for long.

Just after sundown, Pete came looking for Steve. After nearly a week with no sign of Helena - other than the wolf's heartbreaking daily vigil from the nearby hills - they had decided that it was time to go look for her and try to bring her back to the abbey.

The growing darkness - apart from making it increasingly difficult to see well enough to read and write - also meant that Myka would be changing to her human form. She'd need her wound tended to, and something to eat and drink, and Claudia was more than happy to stay and look after her while the two men went combing the dark woods - she was less of a coward than she'd once thought herself, but she still had no desire to roam the forest at night of she didn't have to.

Myka was awake and alert - for probably the first time in the last week - when Claudia walked in with the water and gruel she'd been doing her best to keep Myka's strength up with. Claudia couldn't help smiling in relief as she looked into those clear green eyes - she'd been told a thousand times that the curse was also conferring a strange sort of accelerated healing, and had seen it for herself as she helped change the dressing on Myka's wounds, but had still been scared for her new friend.

The fact that Myka had screamed in agony with each shift hadn't much to assuage that worry, either. It suddenly hit Claudia that she'd heard no such cry today, and her smile widened. "You seem much better today, my lady."

"I am," Myka agreed, though her voice was still a little tired and rough. "And it's just Myka."

Claudia just blinked at her, oddly nonplussed by the request, and Myka smiled a little. "What's your name, young man?"

Then she looked closer at Claudia, eyes widening in amusement as she corrected herself. "My mistake. You're no boy - though the disguise is very good."

Somehow, that drew Claudia out of her daze. "My name is Claudia. Most people call me The Mouse - when they aren't just cursing at me for stealing from them."

"The Mouse," Myka murmured to herself, apparently ignoring the comment about thievery. "It suits you, in an odd way. Mice are very quick and clever, and they know how how to survive."

Then she reached out and gave Claudia's hand a gentle squeeze. "But few mice would have shown such courage and selflessness. We'll have to give you a new name - Claudia the Brave has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

A strange shiver ran through Claudia at the compliment, even though she would have sworn her face was on fire from the way she was blushing. She could feel the various expressions warring for control of her features, finally settling closest to a grimace as she realized how stupid she probably looked just standing there making random faces.

Myka, fortunately, had already moved on, seeming to take no notice of her erstwhile nurse's discomfort. "You travel with her, don't you? With Helena?"

Claudia just nodded, her mind already forming the words to relay the heroic exploits of the last few days. There was so much to tell Myka, and she wanted to tell the tale perfectly...

The words died unspoken as Claudia saw the sadness in Myka's eyes for the split second it took the other woman to hide it again. She also saw the paleness of Myka's skin, and understood for the first time what it truly signified.

Things that Claudia took completely for granted were absolutely impossible for Myka. She could never ride alongside Helena, or even just see Helena's face and hear her voice.

Claudia's time in the dungeons of Aquila had taught her all she needed to know to understand Myka's plight. She knew what it was like to never see the sun, or even see the true color of the world around her without the distortion of torchlight and firelight. To also be forbidden even the simplest physical contact with the woman she'd loved enough to marry had to have made Myka's life hell on earth.

In a way, it was hard for Claudia to believe that the seemingly gentle soul in front of her had been strong enough to survive that kind of hardship. For all the loss she'd suffered, Myka's world before the curse had been a safe, gentle, peaceful one - the fact that she'd been torn from that and thrust into the life of a hunted fugitive, forced to live with a curse that stole the very humanity from herself and those she held closest, never knowing if any of it would ever end...

The lump in Claudia's throat as she considered all of this kept her from speaking at first, though she finally managed to force her voice past it. "She threatened me - Helena, I mean, when you got hurt. She told me she would hunt me down and do horrible things to me if I didn't get you to the Rabbi in time to save you."

Myka's answering smile was still sad, but it was genuine, and Claudia pressed on. "It's hard for her to talk about you, even to me. She told me once, though, that she's determined to find a way to break the curse so the two of you can be together. She said that nothing else is acceptable to her."

"She always was melodramatic," Myka whispered, smile growing even as her green eyes filled with tears. "Where is she? Is she alright?"

Claudia nodded. "She was wounded in the fight, but it wasn't serious. She won't come out of the woods, though, so Pete and Father Stephen have gone to find her and bring her back here."

Myka's eyes lit up as she grasped what was apparently some sort of emotional lifeline. "Father Stephen? Steve is here?"

"Rabbi Weisfelt sent for him," Claudia explained. "He's been helping us take care of you for the last few days. He's also been helping me work on my reading."

After that, there was nothing for it but that Claudia sit and read to Myka, both as practice and as a distraction from the ongoing mission to retrieve Helena. Despite everything that had to be weighing on her mind, Myka was a patient teacher, gently guiding and correcting Claudia as she read in much the same way that Steve did - she was nowhere near as fully recovered as she seemed, though, and quickly fell back asleep.

Claudia tucked Myka in, making sure she was as comfortable as possible, then closed the door to ensure she wasn't disturbed. Out in the hallway, Claudia paused and replayed the entire exchange from start to finish - she'd always been a skillful liar and a fast talker, but this was the first time she'd ever taken pride in it.

"Claudia the Brave," she whispered, and hugged herself. She didn't understand any of what had happened in that room, except that Myka's praise had somehow changed her - she'd do almost anything to protect Myka now, and to be the person Myka seemed to think she was...

Not far away, with precious little time left before dawn, Marcus and two of his best men stumbled to the crest of yet another ridge amidst the seemingly endless hills. After Helena de Navarre's escape with the thief, orders had come down to continue the search around the clock - they'd been relayed by Sykes, coming from the Bishop himself, and no one dared argue with them, pointless though they seemed.

Marcus knew that de Navarre had been badly injured in that last skirmish - the wounds weren't mortal, if Marcus had to guess, but were still serious enough to have slowed the woman down. Even so, they had searched almost every inch of the surrounding area in vain - Marcus was only going through the motions at this point as he searched the ground for any sign of a trail in torchlight too dim for it to be possible.

One of the men suddenly stopped and pointed. "Sir! Over there!"

Marcus followed the man's outstretched arm - off in the distance, outlined by moonlight, lay the crumbling remains of an abbey. The barest trace of a smile crossed Marcus' face as he spotted the flickering pinpoint of light just below it that indicated a fire - someone was in those ruins...

Claudia joined Weisfelt by the garden bonfire, which the old rabbi was poking at moodily. It seemed to her that he was always in a bad mood of some sort - tired and cranky was apparently his natural state anyway, even at the best of times, but he also seemed to be reflecting and amplifying all of Myka de Anjou's pain and sadness.

It was almost like he considered it a penance of some sort, and none of them liked it at all - for all his mistakes, Arthur Weisfelt was a good man, and the curse had brought them all enough grief without him trying to take on more than his fair share. Claudia, heart strangely light after her visit with Myka, tried to share some of that happiness by smiling at him - he only grumbled under his breath at her in return as he moved to sit down at the table, and Claudia just barely managed to make her chuckle sound like a cough.

The old man - and the weight of his guilt made him seem far older than his actual years - was muttering to himself and jotting notes on scrap paper as he carefully moved around all the apples and oranges that still sat exactly as he had left them. (They were a little overripe after a week, to be honest, so no one had touched them since the night they'd arrived.) His eyes crinkled as he concentrated, and Claudia couldn't help but think that he was exactly what she would have pictured had she dared to imagine a father or grandfather for herself.

"It's not your fault, you know." Claudia's voice as she spoke seemed loud in the dark, quiet garden. "I mean, not really."

The rabbi turned and blinked owlishly at her, clearly having already forgotten her presence. "What?"

Claudia just grinned at him before turning serious again. "The curse, what happened to Helena and Myka. It's not your fault - you were trying to help, you just... did it wrong."

He grumbled something under his breath again, then turned back to his work, so Claudia crept closer. "What are you working on? Is this some kind of puzzle or something?"

Weisfelt looked at her for a long moment, as if determining whether or not to share his secret, then finally decided he needed a friendly ear. "This is how we break the curse."

It had taken him the entirety of the last two years to find it, apparently, and with good reason. Claudia could barely follow his explanation of celestial objects and their movement through the sky, even with the apples and oranges to help demonstrate - she felt oddly guilty when she had to explain that she'd eaten the moon on her first night here, but the confession actually won her a rare smile from the rabbi.

The key to the curse, he explained, was the division of day and night. There were times, however, when the objects in the sky seemed to block or eclipse each other, creating a sort of night even during the day, and he'd spent the last year tracking the movements of those objects as best he could, trying to guess when the next false night would be.

"If Helena and Myka can stand together and face the Bishop," he concluded, "during one of these... events, it may be enough to confuse the magic and break the curse."

Claudia just shook her head. "Oh, Helena intends to face the Bishop, daytime, nighttime, whatever - she wants to kill him."

She couldn't help wondering for a moment if the Bishop had always been so evil and corrupt. Had he been a good man once, watching out for his city and his people, worthy of respect? Had Helena and Pete and Charles felt proud to serve him, and the Church he represented?

She could only imagine how bitter and painful it must have been to feel that pride slip away as the Bishop's obsession with Myka grew. Each of their families had served the Church honorably and well for generations now, only have that service spat on...

"Always headstrong, that one." The rabbi's voice pulled Claudia from her thoughts. "Helena can't kill the Bishop - the curse might never be broken!'

Claudia started to ask the old man just what alternative he had to offer Helena - and just how he planned to stop her from doing something she was so clearly set on - when a loud, insistent banging at the front gate startled them both.

"Open up in there!" The masculine voice was clearly used to being obeyed without question. "Open up in the name of the His Grace, the Bishop of Aquila!"

Claudia and Weisfelt looked at each other, faces equally fearful. Steeling himself with a final anxious glance toward where Myka slept, Weisfelt rose to his feet and began walking toward the gates. Claudia, not sure what else to do, followed right behind him.

All too quickly, Weisfelt was at his spot on the parapets, looking down on a trio of the Bishop's Guard. Claudia, even crouched down out of site at the rabbi's insistence, had seen enough to recognize Marcus, and to see the makeshift battering ram carried by the two men with him.

"Go away!" Weisfelt called out belligerently, doing a credible imitation of a tired, drunken old man. "This is a place of God, not one of your filthy brothels."

Marcus, whose many faults didn't actually include a lack of intelligence, was having none of it. "Open up for the Bishop of Aquila!"

"I've met the Bishop!" Weisfelt called back, still trying to carry his act. "You don't look a damn thing like him!"

Marcus didn't waste any more time arguing, instead turning to his men. "Break those gates down. Now."

"Myka!" Claudia and Weisfelt chorused in unison. Claudia didn't need any further orders, though the rabbi urged her on all the same - she was on her feet and running for Myka a heartbeat or two after saying her name, keeping low to avoid being spotted for as long as possible. If they could just hide Myka somewhere for long enough, the soldiers would have to leave...

Marcus' men ran at the door with the makeshift ram - just a big log, really - and the solid thud of the impact carried across the darkness. There was also the groaning and creaking of old, half-rotten wood as the gate and the beam holding it closed threatened to shatter under the blow.

"Now you've gone too far!" Weisfelt called out, stalling for time. "The Bishop will hear about this!"

Ignoring what they saw only as a drunk old man, the guards rammed the gate again - this time, it gave way, cracking and warping and splintering. The trio rushed in and headed straight for the steps that led to the abbey garden, heedless of the fact that they were racing blindly into old, unstable ruins.

The ancient steps obediently crumbled on cue under the trio's weight. Arthur Weisfelt watched with immense satisfaction as the three men were sent tumbling back down the hill to land in front of the gate.

"Sorry about that," Artie called out apologetically, stifling his laughter. "I'm a rabbi, not an engineer."

The trio ignored him, exactly as before, cursing under their breath as they started a fresh, if much more carefully considered, climb back up the hill. Artie simply stood watching, struggling not to smirk as he projected an air of aggrieved indignation.

Claudia, with precious little time for the niceties Myka deserved, simply burst through the door to Myka's chamber. "My lady!"

Myka bolted upright in the bed, clutching at her still-healing shoulder. There was no mistaking the fear in Claudia's eyes. "What's wrong?"

"No time to explain," Claudia gasped out. "Just come with me."

It took far, far longer than Claudia would have liked to help Myka out of the bed, and then to wrap a blanket around her to ward off the night's chill. Once the other woman was on her feet, she dragged them both out into the hallway as fast as she dared.

Myka, in pain and not used to having her questions ignored, balked. "Tell me what's going on. Why are we running, and why in this direction?"

They both glanced back as the sound of angry voices reached them, but it was Claudia who spoke. "Because, my lady, we can't go *that* way.."

Over in the garden, Artie hurried toward the abbey interior as slowly as he dared, dawdling every second that he could as the guards urged him on. Once they finally reached the drawbridge, he stopped as if to catch his breath while pointing out the entrance. "That way! It's the door on the right - and don't forget-"

The guard beside him rushed ahead before the old rabbi could finish, dropping from sight with a startled shriek as the planks of the drawbridge suddenly gave way under his weight. Sighing as if in weariness, Artie somehow managed to hide his amusement as he continued his earlier warning. "Always walk on the left side."

Marcus was neither stupid nor amused - he knew exactly what had happened. The hilt of his sword connected with Arthur Nielsen's skull, and that was the last thing Artie knew for quite some time.

Claudia, for her part, was doing her best to hurry Myka to safety - not that she was completely sure where exactly safety lay in the old ruins. She was trying her hardest to stay calm and be brave for Myka's sake, but she'd explored enough of the abbey to know that the only real way out was through Marcus and his men.

Myka's only hope - her own, too, though she tried not to think about that too hard - was to find someplace to hide that the guards would overlook. She couldn't help grinning as she spotted the staircase that led up into the abbey's empty, crumbling bell tower. It wasn't much to smile at, to be honest, but it just might do the trick if they moved fast - and she really had no other alternatives at hand.

Turning back to her charge, Claudia felt a fresh wave of concern as she took in Myka's bloodless skin and tight-pressed lips. The woman was clearly in pain already, and Claudia was about to demand even more from her. "The tower stairs, my lady - do you think you can-?"

Myka just nodded, expression determined even through her pain. Claudia, too afraid to be shy, took the injured woman's hand and began to usher her up the surprisingly sturdy stairs as quickly as she could. There was every likelihood that the guards had found Weisfelt's cell and realized that someone else - someone injured who could easily be any one of the fugitives they were after - had been using it. From there, it was only a matter of time before their search led them to the old bell tower.

Their only hope was to climb high enough into the tower to hide away, unheard and unseen. The spiraling staircase seemed to go on forever without offering any usable hiding place, though, and Myka's strength was rapidly dwindling. Claudia tugged harder on Myka's arm, thinking to urge her on - she must have tugged too hard, however, as Myka stumbled and cried out in pain.

Fighting down a fresh wave of panic at the noise, Claudia moved back down a step to place herself at Myka's side. Propriety forgotten in the midst of peril, she put an arm around Myka's waist to lend what strength and support she could as she kept them both climbing. The trapdoor that led to the roof was close now, so close - if they could just reach it without being discovered...

Marcus, passing by the foot of the belfry stairs, stopped dead in his tracks as the faintest echo of a distinctly feminine cry of pain reached his ears. He smiled in satisfaction - a thin, tight smile that barely pulled at the corners of his mouth - and gestured for the single guard accompanying him to proceed. Obedient, the guard drew his sword and began making his way up the staircase.

The guard ran up the stairs as quickly as he could while still staying reasonably quiet. He had just reached the blind corner between two levels when the woman's voice filtered down to him, begging to stop and rest. Pleased at having cornered his quarry, he grinned and dashed around the corner.

Claudia, crouched and lying in wait, swung around and thrust out a leg to sweep the guard's feet out from under him - for once, it went exactly the way Pete had tried to show her. The guard stumbled, struggling to regain his footing, and Claudia darted forward to shove him as hard as she could - he went tumbling down the stairs and out of sight with a gratifying cry of surprise. Turning to look at Myka, who stood safely hidden a little further up the stairwell, Claudia flashed her a triumphant grin, which Myka responded to with a mock-salute and a grin of her own.

Claudia didn't allow their success to slow them down, though. "Hurry, my lady! We have to keep moving!"

Just having reached a landing not far below, Marcus scrambled to leap aside as the body of his guard came rolling down onto the platform. The man's head smacked against the wall just hard enough to render him unconscious, and Marcus stepped over him with a disgusted curse as he started up the stairs at a dead run.

Claudia heard his footsteps below as she shoved on the tiny trapdoor that led onto the roof, but didn't have time to worry about who they belonged to. Instead, she just focused on pulling first herself and then Myka onto that roof before kicking the trapdoor shut - only to find that the roof was completely empty and offered nowhere to hide.

The stars were already fading in the east, hinting at the coming dawn. Hoping for some way to climb down, both women peered out over the parapet, past the gargoyles that jutted out from under the tower eaves - the only things visible in the dim light were the jagged rocks of the hillside far, far below them.

Claudia turned to look at Myka, and found her own desperation echoed in the other woman's eyes. Myka swallowed hard, then finally spoke, her voice surprisingly steady. "Listen - it's me they want. maybe-"

"Forgive me, my lady," Claudia interrupted, "but don't flatter yourself."

The trapdoor slammed open before Myka could argue or retort, Marcus' helmeted head rising into view. Claudia dashed over and kicked the trapdoor shut again, sending Marcus falling back down into the belfry. Securing the door the only way she could think of, she knotted its weathered old pull rope around a nearby stone cleat.

The door still continued to jump as Marcus began pounding on it with his sword hilt. Claudia, improvising, stepped on top of the door, hoping her meager added weight would help tip the balance - desperate and helpless, she risked a glance over at Myka.

Myka was pressed back against the parapet, face ashen with pain and fear. There was a sudden, terrible noise as rotten wood and decayed mortar gave under her weight, and the wall behind her just crumbled - but even that noise was nothing compared to Myka's scream as she lost her balance and started falling.

"NO!" Claudia practically flew across the distance between them, lunging for the falling woman. She caught Myka's hand just as it slipped from the stone, keeping her from falling through willpower alone as Myka's weight nearly pulled them both over the edge.

Claudia stared down into Myka's frightened, pleading eyes as she struggled desperately to brace herself, jamming her legs against the wall and praying it held. She strained with everything she had to pull Myka back up and onto the roof, but the wall offered no leverage and her arms weren't strong enough to compensate.

It was all she could do just to keep hold of Myka - and there was no way in Heaven, Hell, or any other place that that would be enough to save the other woman. Anger set in as Claudia nonetheless continued struggling, and she began cursing her smallness, her weakness, and her uselessness, rounding out the litany by cursing the day she'd been born.

Unaware of the life-and-death struggle playing out on the roof, Marcus continued his assault on the trapdoor - it began to buckle and splinter loudly, and Claudia would have congratulated herself on making it so difficult for him, if she hadn't been thinking that he could have saved Myka in a heartbeat. The Bishop had doubtless ordered the Guard to bring his beloved back in alive...

Cursing still louder as she realized she couldn't even let go of Myka long enough to help Marcus get to them, Claudia looked around the roof one more time, just in case something had magically changed somehow in the last few seconds. She realized with a jolt that something actually *had* changed - the sky was visibly lighter now, and she felt a sudden renewed hope as she saw that the dawn was close at hand.

Myka followed Claudia's gaze to the horizon, seeming to take her meaning. Twisting as much as she dared, she took in the glow beginning to outline the clouds overhead, and managed a tiny smile as her eyes met Claudia's. Dawn was coming, and with it the transformation she'd never expected to long for - if they could hold out just a little longer, she could fly away safe and sound.

That was the problem, of course - how long was 'just a little longer'? The sun hadn't yet broken the horizon, for all that it was growing brighter and brighter. Was sunrise mere heartbeats away, or was it still several long minutes from happening? How much longer did they have to hold on?

Claudia already felt as if her arms were being pulled from the sockets - her lower lip was bleeding from where she was biting into it to steel herself against the pain. Her hands were slick with sweat from her efforts, and Myka's hand slipped just a little bit further from her grasp - and then just a little further still.

Myka's eyes were filled with raw terror as she struggled to hang on. "Please don't let me fall..."

"I've got you, my lady," Claudia lied, eyes frantically scanning the horizon. "I've got you."

Then Myka's hand slipped that last little bit, tearing free of Claudia's grasp, and she went falling into empty space.

Claudia screamed and lunged forward, unable to even formulate words in her panic and desperation, but she caught only empty air. She could only watch helplessly as Myka fell into the rising light - the light of the sun coming up behind Myka was almost blinding, actually, and Claudia instinctively threw up a hand to shield her eyes.

She forced the hand away, only to freeze motionless with disbelief as magic began to suffuse the air. Myka seemed to hover in midair as the sunlight outlined her body - her hair, streaming around her as she fell, started molding itself into a hawk's crest, and her pale,thin arms darkened and twisted as they stretched out into something resembling a hawk's wings.

Claudia blinked reflexively, and opened her eyes to see the hawk hanging in the air, caught between sky and earth as it beat its wings furiously to stop its fall. It looked like a painful and pointless struggle, but the bird's still-healing wings finally caught a draft at the very last possible instant.

Claudia sobbed openly in relief as the hawk soared on an updraft of warm air - it soared high on the current of air, past the bell tower and out into the hills...

Marcus, for his part, took one final swing at the trapdoor, smiling grimly as it finally gave way. He climbed through it, sword at the ready as his eyes swept the roof for his quarry. The smile faded as his gaze fell on empty rooftop.

The roof, impossible as it seemed, was indeed empty. Marcus, incredulous, circled the entire thing just to be absolutely certain - he scoured it for any trace of the thief or the mysterious woman who meant so much to the Bishop, but there was no sign of either of them.

There were no hiding places large enough to conceal two grown human beings - there wasn't even a hiding space large enough for de Navarre's damned hawk. He circled the roof a second time just in case he had missed something, but he hadn't - even if there had been someone there before, there was no one there now. With a muttered complaint that questioned his own sanity, he turned to head back to the stairwell.

The unmistakable sound of falling masonry broke the early morning silence, though, and Marcus stopped, eyeing the broken section of wall. Peering cautiously over the parapet, he saw only bits of falling wood and masonry, headed for the rocks below. Leaning further out - as far out as he dared - he almost shook his head in disbelief at the sight that greeted him.

Donovan - the thief - was straddling one of the gargoyles, pressing back against the wall as he did his best to become one with the tower. The boy smiled nervously as he spotted Marcus' glowering face looming above him. "Morning. Looks like a nice day so far."

Marcus had no time for the boy's games. "Where's the woman, boy?"

"Woman?" the boy echoed weakly. "What woman?"

Marcus' sword whistled as it cut the air, landing on the gargoyle, just in front of the thief. Chips of shattered stone went flying every which way as half of the gargoyle's mouth broke away under the force of the blow - the boy paled as he watched the debris hit the rocks below them.

Annoyed as he was, Marcus still offered the boy one last chance. "The woman you led up here. Where did she go?"

"She flew away," the thief mumbled. "She flew away..."

His last shred of patience exhausted, Marcus raised his sword again.

"I swear to God," Claudia protested in her own defense, "she flew away!"

Terrified, she closed her eyes, not wanting to see the end coming. There was a dull thunk - or perhaps a thud - and then... nothing. Forcing her eyes back open, Claudia made herself check to see what had happened.

Marcus still loomed above her, only now there was a familiar arrow sticking out from between his eyes. He began to fall, then, toppling over the edge of the parapet. Claudia flinched and grimaced as she heard his body hit the rocks below, though not out of any sympathy for the man himself.

Turning away from the grisly sight below her, Claudia scanned the hills, and found exactly what she'd expected to see - Helena, sitting astride Goliath, on one of the ridges across from the abbey. Grinning like a madwoman and waving furiously in greeting, she watched Helena lower her longbow with a slight answering grin of her own.

"So it does pay to tell the truth," Claudia murmured, looking Heavenward as she sagged against the stone at her back. "Thanks - I see that now."

Then, ever so carefully, she began to pick her way back onto the roof.


	13. Chapter Twelve

Helena swung herself stiffly down from Goliath's back as she watched Claudia climb to safety. She hadn't seen everything that had led up to her timely intervention, but she'd seen enough - the girl had fought valiantly to help Myka. Looking up sharply at the reminder, Helena searched the sky for some sign of the hawk, calling out to summon it. "Hoy!"

Ominous silence greeted her in return, broken only by the whistling of the wind among the mountain ridges. There was a note of desperation in her voice as she called out again, a little louder and more stridently. "HOY!"

Helena's voice echoed across the hills as her cry rolled over them, finally fading to nothingness. There was still no sign of the hawk - of Myka - which could mean any number of things, very few of them good. Helena, already starting to feel sick with worry and fear, stared at the ground for a moment to compose herself before turning to climb back up onto Goliath.

Just as Helena reached for Goliath's mane, an angry, annoyed, but extremely familiar shriek filled the air. Her head snapped up just in time to see the hawk start spiraling down to her, still-healing wings moving a bit stiffly. The bird landed heavily on its mistress' gauntlet, making Helena wince as it pulled at her own injuries, but the pain instantly faded as the bird ruffled its wings in happy recognition.

Helena stroked its head gently for a moment before carefully moving one wing so that she get a clear view of its wound. She couldn't help murmuring as she did so, the words and tone as soothing to her as to the bird. "Shh... be still now. Let me see."

The bird, of course, was having none of it. Very much back to its old self already, it rewarded its mistress' attentions by nipping at her sharply. Helena pulled her hand away, mouth twitching with a rueful grin even as she laughed. "So that's the way you greet me, is it then, darling?"

Goliath whickered as if amused, but stood obediently still as Helena climbed slowly and somewhat clumsily back onto the saddle - her wounds had healed rapidly, just like Myka's, but she was far from completely recovered. Helena had known that the injuries weren't fatal even as she'd sustained them, though, and the physical pain hadn't been anywhere near the worst of it. Now that the hawk - now that Myka - was back on her arm, the only truly unbearable pain she'd ever felt was rapidly fading.

Helena frowned a little as she saw Weisfelt moving for the abbey gates, but rode on toward the ruins anyway. She'd stayed away as much from fear of her anger as she had from pain and weakness - she didn't trust herself not to lash out at the Rabbi, and couldn't risk it when Myka needed him so desperately. Still, he, Claudia, Pete, and - strangely enough - Father Stephen had at least thought to call out to her every morning, letting her know that Myka continued to recover and was out of any mortal danger.

The isolation had also given her plenty of time to ponder Claudia's role in her ambush - the obvious answer was that Claudia had betrayed her to gain leniency from the Bishop's Guard, though it hardly seemed like the defiant girl she'd come to know. It didn't matter anymore, anyway, Helena had decided - whatever mistakes Claudia might have made were more than made up for by her part in saving Myka's life twice over now.

Helena rode through the abbey gates and up the hill, head high and face carefully blank. Weisfelt watched her stop at the abbey entrance proper, then raced over to her without fear or hesitation - if anything, the old man seemed pleased to see her at his doorstep, even armed and angry.

She couldn't quite keep that anger from her eyes or face as she stared down at the man whose arrogance had caused so much suffering, to herself and to those she loved. Her fists clenched involuntarily on the reins - Goliath was too well-trained to respond without further instructions, but Weisfelt saw the movement of her hands and decided not to move any closer. The holy man and the soldier stared at each other in silence, face to face for the first time in two unbearably long years.

"I thought you might be dead by now, old man," Helena said finally, forcing her jaw to unclench. "There were times I vowed to kill you myself."

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, forcing herself back to some semblance of calmness, and the gratitude in her eyes when she reopened them was completely genuine. "Thank you for saving her life."

Weisfelt nodded then looked away, unable to hold her gaze for long. "Vengeance is for God to mete out, not us mere mortals."

"I am not God, old man," Helena retorted sharply. "Do not think that I have forgiven - or forgotten."

Before Weisfelt could respond, Steve came riding up from the hills, Pete in dog form fast at his heels. "Helena? Oh thank the Lord..."

Pete the dog echoed the priest's sentiment, barking happily as he rushed up to her, tail wagging. Claudia added to the noise by rushing out from inside the abbey, and Helena dismounted before all the noise and fuss accidentally spooked Goliath - he was smart and well-behaved, but he was just as stressed as the rest of them.

Claudia didn't even wait to catch her breath - or for Helena's feet to hit the ground - before she rounded on Weisfelt. "Tell her. If you want to make this right, tell her."

All eyes flew to the old Rabbi, including Helena's. "Tell me what?"

Weisfelt shifted uncomfortably, looking down at his feet as he gathered his thoughts. Then he looked up, meeting Helena's angry gaze dead-on. "I may have found a way to break the curse."

Helena stiffened as if she'd been struck. The world faded away, lost to the red haze filling her vision and the thundering of her pulse in her ears. Finally, she recovered her voice. "If you're tormenting me with false hope..."

It was Steve who spoke first, knowing his words would hold the most weight with Helena. "It's true, Helena. I don't understand it all, but I understand enough to think you should hear him out."

Helena nodded, grudgingly, and Artie began to explain what he'd discovered. "In three days, the Bishop will start taking the confession of the local clergy, just like every year. If you and Myka can confront him together - both of you, in your human forms - the curse will be broken. You'll be free, and - if there's any justice in this world - the dark powers the Bishop made his pact with will come take him away."

Helena searched Weisfelt's eyes for any sign of deception or doubt, but could find none. Conventional wisdom held that curses were imperfect by their very nature - there was always some way to defeat them, so that an innocent caught by one could break themselves free. Not, of course, that the flaw was ever obvious, or easy to exploit.

"It's not possible," Helena said finally, though it was clear that she wanted to believe it was. "Facing the Bishop together, as woman and woman?"

Still, she'd once assumed that escaping the dungeons of Aquila was impossible. Her eyes darted involuntarily to Claudia, who stood staring at her with imploring eyes filled with hope and faith - the child was nothing if not a completely contradictory mixture of many things Helena had once considered to be impossible, if she'd ever even thought about them at all.

Artie agreed with Helena's initial opinion, but knew she wasn't seeing the whole picture. "Of course it's impossible, as long as there's just night and day - that's the whole point of the curse. In three days - while all the clergy are gathered in Aquila - there will be a moment when it's neither night nor day. A night without a day, and a day without a night, if you want to be overly dramatic about it."

Helena just stared at the rabbi, searching for any sign of a joke or a jest. The old man was completely serious, though, which could only mean he'd finally gone mad. The tiny precious kernel of hope that had begin to bloom withered and died instantly, leaving only a numbing coldness that reflected in her eyes. "You've lost your mind, old man. God hasn't forgiven you - He's just cursed you so that you can suffer like the rest of us."

Artie had expected doubt and resistance, had been prepared for it - what he hadn't prepared himself for was the utter lack of hope in Helena's voice and eyes. She'd been full of light and life once, and his pride had stolen them from her. He opened his mouth to argue with her, to make her see reason, but decided that this was just not the moment. Turning away with a shake of his head, he walked slowly back into the abbey, praying that God would allow him just one more chance to convince Helena de Navarre of the truth.

Steve looked between Artie and Helena for a moment, before giving Helena an unexpected hug that she couldn't help but return. "I need to talk to you, Helena. Please don't leave until I come back."

Claudia watched Helena nod her agreement, but knew she had no intention of listening to anyone siding with Arthur Weisfelt, no matter how trusted a friend. As soon as Steve was out of earshot, she turned to Helena. "Isn't it a sin to lie to your priest?"

Helena's answering smile was tight and humorless. "After all the other sins I've been forced to commit, no one will even notice."

With that, Helena shook off her melancholy and somehow managed a much more genuine smile. There was nothing but gratitude visible as she held out her hand to Claudia. "I am in your debt, Claudia. I will not forget what you've done for all of us."

Claudia, suddenly bashful, grinned shyly and awkwardly shook Helena's hand. She forced the bashfulness away, though, trying to help Weisfelt's cause with a few well-chosen words. "Me? I'm just happy I *could* help. Myka - my lady de Anjou - she asked me to give you a message, though."

She chose her next words very carefully, hoping that Helena's sudden and complete, if wary, attention would let her plant the right seeds in her friend's mind. "She said to say that she loves you, and that she misses you. She also said not to give up hope, that she knows you can break the curse if you just keep the faith."

Helena's eyes bored into her, searching for any sign that she was being manipulated or deceived. Claudia held her ground, though, meeting the other woman's eyes squarely and letting her genuine hope that Weisfelt had found a way out for them add weight and believability to her words - she hated lying to Helena, but *someone* had to try and keep her from throwing away the only real chance they'd found to break the curse.

Helena looked away, hiding her disquiet by staring again at the hawk. The hawk, seeming to enjoy the attention, preened a little before making a noise that sounded almost like a greeting. Finally, Helena turned back to face Claudia, suddenly painfully aware of how young and small the child really was. "You're free to go - I had no right to keep you in the first place. You've done more than I ever could have expected."

Claudia didn't move a single step, though. "Thanks."

The child stood there as if still awaiting orders, and Helena began to feel increasingly awkward. "If you're careful for the next few days, you'll be free of the Bishop's Guard - once I return to Aquila, they'll forget all about your escape."

Claudia just nodded, red hair bright in the morning sun. "So you and Ladyhawke are going back to Aquila?"

"Ladyhawke..." The unexpected nickname caught Helena by surprise, and she smiled for just a heartbeat or two as she glanced over to the hawk. The smile faded away as she considered Claudia's question. "Yes, we'll be returning to Aquila. One way or another, it's time to end this."

Claudia wanted to shake some sense into her - or maybe just scream at her that Artie was offering her a way out that cost nothing to try - but she forced herself to stay calm. "Let me at least help you get back into Aquila - it should be easy enough for me to get back out in all the confusion."

Helena knew exactly what Claudia was up to, but couldn't hold it against the girl. "And maybe in the meantime you can convince me that the old man isn't simply mad?"

Claudia grinned even as she shrugged noncommittally. "If he's right, maybe I can spot what's happening. He told me what to look for."

Helena just rolled her eyes. "Very well. You might want to get your own horse this time - the guards' horses are still milling around out there, and I'm sure one of them will suit you. And when we get to Aquila, you get us in and then you get yourself to safety - is that understood?"

"Of course," Claudia replied, still grinning. "Trust me - I want to live just as much as I want to help. Is it okay if I take a couple minutes to go say goodbye?"

Helena nodded her assent. "Tell Stephen that I'm sorry. I just... can't. Not today."

An hour later, they were well underway. Helena had managed to capture one of the now riderless horses for Claudia, who suddenly found that she was no longer afraid of the animals - in fact, she and her new mount got along quite well from the instant they laid eyes on each other.

It made Claudia rather proud, actually, and buoyed her confidence. If she - Claudia the Brave, sometime squire to Helena de Navarre and sometime defender of Myka de Anjou - could learn to ride a horse, and ride well, then she could do just about anything.

Including, she hoped, convincing Helena to test Artie's theory instead of blindly committing suicide by attacking the Bishop - which was exactly what she'd told Artie and Steve, when they'd all agreed that the two men would follow a short distance behind. That way, they could be there to help when Helena finally came to her senses.

The main road to Aquila was too well-guarded for them to use now, so they stuck to the foothills, taking a winding, circuitous path that Helena swore would lead them to a less-guarded side gate to the city. There was plenty of time for Claudia to elaborate on Artie's theory as they traveled, though she made sure not to test Helena's patience too much.

Claudia was actually fairly hopeful that she'd succeed in convincing Helena - the older woman was tired and a bit grumpy, but receptive enough to Claudia's words. She didn't forbid Claudia from explaining everything Artie had seen that gave him such faith in his plan, and she was surprisingly willing to answer Claudia's questions about growing up with Myka, Pete, and her brother Charles.

They finally stopped to rest at midday. Claudia was completely exhausted by then, having already adjusted to Pete and Myka's nocturnal schedule - Helena, injured as well as tired, was fast asleep before Claudia had even finished tending to Goliath and her own new mount, a surprisingly docile gray she'd already dubbed Mouse.

Claudia, despite being the last to fall asleep, was still the first awake. By the time Helena woke not long after, she already had a fire going and was working on putting a small meal together - Helena actually praised her for her initiative, a far cry from the original tenor of their relationship. (Helena, for her part, did not overlook how surprised the young thief was at receiving said praise, and quietly resolved to be kinder to the poor girl.)

A storm had been moving in from the west even before they'd stopped - Claudia had noted how much darker and thicker the clouds seemed as she'd waited for Helena to wake. As they mounted up and started back on their path through the hills, those clouds were joined by loud, rolling thunder, and Claudia stuck her hand out to catch a few stray raindrops. "This is going to be a bad one, Captain. We're going to get soaked."

Helena, lost in her own dark thoughts, was jerked back to the present by the use of her former rank and title. Claudia, who'd meant to tease a little while showing her respect, just grinned until the other woman rolled her eyes and gave a tiny smile in return. Another boom of thunder cut the exchange short, though, as Helena scanned the darkening skies. "You're right. The storm is almost here and the sun is going down. You need to find shelter."

"It's sunset already?" Claudia scanned the same uniformly gray skies and couldn't make heads or tails of the time of day. "How can you even tell?"

Helena called a halt, then swung down off of Goliath. She handed her sword - and Goliath's reins - to Claudia. "After two years, how could I not?"

Helena whistled to call the dog - to call Pete - who'd wandered off as they rode, then raised an arm to summon the hawk. This time, the hawk came just as soon as she was called, settling happily on her mistress' arm. The dog arrived not long after, barking and scampering as if already enjoying the impending storm.

Turning to Claudia, she transferred the hawk to the girl's outstretched arm and ordered the dog to stay with its friends. Her next words were spoken in the same tone that she'd used with the soldiers under her charge, though Claudia couldn't really understand the gesture of respect without being told as much. "Protect them both, Claudia."

With that, Helena turned and began to head for the woods, limping a little as the hours of riding aggravated her injuries. The dog sat whining as it watched its mistress, voicing Claudia's unhappiness as much as his own, then ran after Helena when she stumbled ever so slightly.

Claudia didn't even try to call him back. The dog wouldn't listen to her any more than the human Pete would have, and Pete and Helena as a dog and a wolf were better suited to last out this storm than she herself was. The thunder was starting to spook the horses and the hawk, and she needed to find shelter for them all as quickly as possible.

Still, she couldn't help but watch for another moment as her two friends made their towards the trees. What was it like, she wondered, to roam those woods as a wild animal living on instinct alone, all memories of a human life temporarily forgotten? Then again, Pete and Myka and Helena still recognized each other even in their cursed forms, so maybe some part of their memories lingered still...

Sensing Claudia's scrutiny, Helena turned to look back. The hawk called out in greeting as Claudia waved, raising the sword in a salute filled with confidence she really didn't feel. It was enough, though, as the dog barked happily in acknowledgment and Helena returned Claudia's salute with a brief smile.

A very loud, very close boom of thunder marked an equally close lightning strike, and Claudia involuntarily turned toward the noise and brightness. None of the immediately visible trees had been hit, though, so she turned back - by then, however, Helena and her canine protector had already disappeared from sight.

The cold raindrops finally turned to cold rain as Claudia began to ride on. She hadn't ridden very far at all when she came upon a group of villagers hurrying down the road - they were all dressed in their festival best, laughing and chattering, and were all too happy to tell Claudia about the wedding feast they were headed to.

Claudia followed them to their destination - a small nearby inn - and gratefully took shelter in its large, if somewhat rundown, barn as the storm hit in earnest. The hawk, not liking the storm at all, flew up into the rafters the second they got inside, perching up under the roof even as she shook her damp feathers out.

Mouse and Goliath, at least, were more or less content once they were out the rain. Neither objected as she removed their saddles and dried them off as best she could - they certainly didn't object as she gave them each some hay to nibble on. Claudia wouldn't have blamed them if they'd continued being nervous and restless, of course, but wasn't going to argue with them making life a little easier on her.

She stood watching the storm for another moment or two - it was definitely impressive enough, lots of thunder and lightning as the rain came pouring down in sheets outside. The leaky barn roof was in desperate need of repair, but it was still dryer and warmer inside the barn than out of it, so Claudia found the driest spot she could and settled in to rest for a bit, Helena's sword tucked carefully beside her. Muscles she hadn't really known she'd had were already protesting the last several hours spent in the saddle, but she took a strange pride in the feeling.

The hawk decided to join her after a moment, swooping down to land on a nearby stall. The poor thing was probably hungry, but Claudia figured it could feed itself. "I'm pretty sure there are some mice or lizards or something you can eat. Just keep away from any cats."

Claudia, still cold and wet, just shrugged and rolled her eyes as the hawk failed to even acknowledge her existence. "Serves me right for getting mixed up in all this. You know I'm not one to question You pointlessly, Lord, but what were You thinking?!"

The hawk began ruffling its feathers as if agitated, and Claudia almost thought for a second that it was somehow insulted by her conversation with God. Then it began moving and shifting restlessly, gold eyes scanning the ceiling, and Claudia finally understood. Sunset had arrived.

Claudia jumped to her feet, suddenly flooded with an anxiety and restlessness of her own. Helena had charged her with protecting the hawk - but the hawk was about to turn back into Myka, and she had no idea what she was supposed to do. She'd never even truly been alone with Myka before - there had always been someone else nearby, even if they were in another room.

She didn't even know if Myka would be clothed or not once she'd changed. The thought made her face redden for some reason, and she glanced toward the barn door. "So I'll just wait outside or something. You do... whatever it is you do."

The overhang on the roof of the barn wasn't enough to keep off the rain and wind as Claudia stood there waiting, though, and she was soaked through in short order. Shivering, she glanced over toward the inn, just in time to see a cart decked with wedding garlands pull up - the newlyweds, laughing, hopped out and raced for the inn, as did the guests riding with them.

Light poured out of the inn's door and out into its yard, seeming almost as warm and sweet and unobtainable as honey to Claudia, who stood there watching in the cold and wet. There was a burst of cheers, greetings, and laughter as everyone piled into the inn's common room, joining those who had already arrived. There was also sweet, lilting music - someone inside was very skilled with a lute - and Claudia couldn't help smiling a little.

Eyes turning back to the cart, she was struck with sudden inspiration - it was wrong to steal from newlyweds on their wedding day, of course, but God would understand. Taking a deep breath, she raced out to the cart, which was still laden with gifts - and conveniently covered to keep those gifts dry. After a moment or two of searching, Claudia's quick, clever hands found a reasonably pretty dress of blue homespun as well as a plain linen shirt and simple rust-colored jerkin.

Darting back to the barn, she found that Myka hadn't changed back yet - the hawk, still there, just stared at her curiously. Grinning, Claudia laid out the gown, feeling both a little silly and strangely proud of her quick thinking. "I can't vouch for the fit, but this should work. Give me a minute, and I'll go back outside."

Helena trudged through the rapidly darkening trees, caught in the same cold, pouring rain that Claudia and her charges had just escaped. Without even consciously choosing to do so, she and Pete, in his canine form, were following roughly the same path that the others had taken - even if they'd wanted to, they couldn't have resisted the compulsion that drove them to stay near Myka, in whatever form she currently inhabited.

The impending change began to announce itself, for both of them. In Helena, as a human, it manifested as itchy skin and burning, twitching muscles, accompanied by sharpening senses and the ascendance of her more feral instincts. She'd never been able to ask Pete or Myka what it was like for them, but Pete the dog's various whines and growls indicated that it was probably just as uncomfortable for him as it was for her.

The nightly ritual was so deeply ingrained after two years that Helena was barely even conscious of it anymore. The first and most important part was to get her human clothing removed and safely stowed before it got damaged in the change or abandoned by her wolf self. Tonight, as well, Pete would need them to cover himself until he could retrieve his own clothes - the fit would be terrible, but it would have to do.

And tonight, at least, those were the only worries on her mind. For once, Myka would not be left unprotected in a strange place until Pete recovered his wits and found her - they had a friend and ally now who would look after her, unlikely a fit for the role as Claudia might be. Helena couldn't help a tiny smile - more just an involuntary twitch of her lips - as she recalled Claudia's earlier attempt at a brave, confident salute simply to reassure her.

A warning blared by her animal senses told her suddenly that she was not alone amongst the trees, and Helena stopped to look around for the threat even as she searched for a suitable place to transform. She was close to a path, so it was probably just a traveler, but the wariness was ingrained.

Sometimes, it was also entirely appropriate. Even through the wind and rain, she could hear two horses approaching - there was only one rider, though, and he smelled strangely like a wolf. Combined with the scent of blood and death he also carried, the man could only be one thing - a hunter.

Cursing the timing of it all - at no other time would she be both so vulnerable and so desirable a target to a random passerby - she decided that the clearing where she currently stood would have to do. She'd have to be quick about it, too, if she wanted to be safely on her way before the hunter spotted her. Pete, fortunately, had an animal's instincts for these things in his current form, and had already tucked himself away somewhere nearby.

Helena had just enough time to strip down and stash her clothes someplace safe before the curse caught her. If the actual transformation hurt, she could never recall it afterward - one moment she was just there, naked as the day she was born, the next she was a wolf again, with no memory of being human as she darted off wherever instinct took her.

The wolf hunter - still working day and night to find the Bishop's prized black wolf - arrived just in time to see something bound off into the trees. When he shivered as if crossing something unnatural, he told himself it was just the chill of the storm.

Claudia had paused just long enough to change into the dry shirt and jerkin before heading back outside to give Myka some privacy - fortunately, the rain had slackened to the point where the barn's overhang actually provided the young thief some protection from the storm. She was even warm and dry enough to hum along happily with the music coming from the inn, as it switched to a familiar tune.

After a few minutes, though, she began to get a little restless. The barn was totally quiet - not even the horses were making any noise that she could hear - and it had to be well past sunset by now. Feeling strangely anxious, she called out to Myka. "Milady? Myka? I'm coming back in now, just so you know!"

There was no sign of the hawk, or of Myka, as Claudia walked back into the barn, but it was dark enough that she could barely even make out the horses in their stalls - their snorting and shuffling were clearly audible now, though. She scanned the shadows again as her eyes adjusted, but still couldn't see anything. "Milady?"

Something closed around Claudia's arm, and she bit back a yelp as she jumped and spun to face whatever it was. 'It' was Myka, human again and clad in the gown Claudia had stolen for her - she'd grabbed Claudia's arm to get her attention, though there was a mischievous glint in her eyes that said she'd known it would startle her friend. After a moment, she spread the skirt of the dress out a little and smiled to indicate her gratitude.

Claudia, swallowing her embarrassment now that all was well, grinned back. "Claudia the Brave, right?'

Myka smiled again and even laughed a little - the combination seeming somehow to light up the whole barn - before turning to greet Goliath and introduce herself to Mouse. Once she was satisfied that both horses were comfortably settled - and had shared another laugh over Mouse's name - she turned to gaze out into the storm. "Where's Pete? And... how is Helena?"

Claudia took a moment to choose her words carefully - she'd long since worked out that convincing Myka of Artie's plan was the better part of convincing Helena and even Pete. "Pete's with Helena - he ran off after her and wouldn't come back. Helena's fine, almost healed. She told me to say that she loves you, and she misses you."

Myka had never been an easy one to fool - she could tell right away that Claudia was hedging. "Helena's taking us back to Aquila. Isn't she?"

"Yes," Claudia admitted, biting her lip as she watched sadness shadow Myka's gaze. Acting on instinct, as always, she decided that keeping Myka's spirits up was crucial to gaining her agreement. Forcing a bright smile, she somehow managed to conjure up an equally bright tone. "Tonight, though, I'm supposed to make sure you rest and relax. Helena said that I should tell you to consider me her proxy, and to follow my instructions as her own."

Helena had said no such thing, and they both knew it. Still, it was a credible imitation of Helena, and Myka let it stand - though her smile made it clear that she'd probably never obeyed Helena a day in her life. "Fair enough. What do you instruct?"

Claudia needed a break as much as the rest of her strange new friends, and new exactly what would make both herself and Myka feel much better. "There's a party going on at the inn. We're going to sit by a warm fire, drink some wine, and maybe even dance a little."

"Dance?" Myka's tone made the word seem somehow unfamiliar to her - or perhaps merely an imaginary concept.

That completely sealed the deal for Claudia. "Why not? It'll be fun."

The thief watched Myka peer out across the yard, taking in the light and music spilling out into it. The conflicting emotions filling Myka's face were almost painful to see - she looked for all the world like a prisoner who'd been isolated for so long that things like companionship and music and dancing no longer even seemed real.

The musicians changed song - one that Claudia recognized, and one she knew the steps for - and she impulsively bowed at Myka. "I know this one - I can probably even lead. Shall we practice?"

Myka hesitated a moment, uncertain, before smiling again. She took Claudia's offered hand and curtsied. Claudia actually managed to get the two of them coordinated after a rather clumsy start - Myka apparently knew the dance too, and they quickly fell into sync as they wove through the steps together.

Myka moved gingerly at first, as if unsure of her feet, but she'd spent her entire life dancing and it didn't take long for her to remember it. She grew more confident with each repetition of the steps, until she was flying through them with Claudia - her cheeks grew rosy from the exertion, her face filled with more color than Claudia had ever known it to have, and she even clapped and laughed as the song, and the dance, came to an end.

Claudia couldn't help smiling herself as Myka's laughter rang in her ears, more beautiful in that moment than any song she could name. It was the first time since they'd met - was it only mere days ago? - that Claudia had heard Myka laugh, truly laugh. Judging by Myka's stunned expression, she'd been just as surprised to hear it as Claudia had.

Myka's hands tightened over Claudia's, those unusual moss-green eyes seeming, in Claudia's mind, to shine like some sort of jewel as they filled with emotion. Claudia knew Myka had to have spent her life dancing at manors and palaces, dressed in the finest silks - something in Myka's expression, though, said that none of that would ever mean as much to her as that one song danced in a rundown barn, while wearing stolen blue homespun.

Claudia let go of Myka's hands, turning away as her heart filled with some emotion she couldn't name and didn't understand. All she knew for certain was that it wasn't for her to feel... well, whatever it was - only Helena had the right to that. Forcing herself into motion to cover her awkwardness, Claudia went to retrieve Helena's sword from where she'd left it.

After a moment or two, she dared to glance over at Myka again. Those green eyes were now filled with something sisterly, or perhaps maternal - Claudia had little enough experience with either - as Myka smiled at her. "So you're to be my protector, too, are you?"

Claudia grinned back as she carefully wrapped the sword in burlap to protect it from both the elements and prying eyes. "If I have to be. The truth is, though, Helena will kill me if anything happens to her sword."

After double-checking that there was nothing else they needed to take with them - the few personal possessions in the old, worn saddlebags would be of interest to no one - Myka grabbed a blanket and draped it over them both. Eyes alight in anticipation of music, food, and wine, they raced through the barn door and toward the inn.

Later, Claudia would curse herself for not being more vigilant. As it was, neither of them saw the horse materialize out of the darkness - they both ran smack into it, then staggered back in surprise. Claudia heard Myka gasp, and looked up herself - her lungs emptied of air at the sight that greeted her.

The horse's rider sat glaring down at them both in annoyance - a huge, terrifying bear of a man whose face showed no trace of human warmth or pity. There was still blood on that face, actually, despite the rain - whatever he'd been doing, it hadn't been friendly or pleasant. His voice, when he finally spoke, was really more of a low growl. "Watch where you're going, boy."

'Of course, sir," Claudia replied, not even questioning the reprieve. "It won't happen again."

She reached out to grab Myka's elbow, hoping to urge her on, but the woman stood frozen in horror as she stared past the man and his horse. Claudia turned to see what had captured her attention, and very quickly wished she hadn't - the man was a hunter, apparently, and his pack horse was piled high with fresh wolf pelts.

Myka remained frozen and silent until her eyes fell on one inky pelt. Paralysis gave way to screaming before Claudia could intervene, and nothing Claudia did stopped that awful, awful sound. Finally, Claudia turned Myka away from the ghastly sight, pulling her close in a way she wouldn't have dared under any other circumstances. "It's okay, Myka. Shh..."

A sudden interest filled the hunter's dark eyes at the name, and he favored them both with a horrible grin. "Myka, is it? Unusual name for a lady, that."

Claudia had the sword uncovered and in front of her before the man could say anything more. It took everything she had, but she raised it and held it steady, pointing right at the man's face. "Say one more word to her and they'll be picking pieces of you out of the mud. Ride on."

The hunter, unimpressed, just grinned. That amusement faded, just a little, when he reached out a hand to Claudia and almost got it sliced open for his trouble. "Easy, little man. I mean your lady no harm."

"Good," Claudia shot back, trying to maintain her bluff. "Ride on, and no one will get hurt."

The hunter rolled his eyes and grumbled something under his breath - probably not repeatable in polite company - but ordered his horses into motion. Claudia helped them along by smacking the lead horse firmly in the rump with the flat of the blade. She took care not to hurt the beast, but it understood her point anyway and moved a little faster as it carried its rider off into the night.

"Well, I guess we showed him!" Claudia, flush with triumph, lowered the sword and turned to look at Myka. The words died unvoiced as realized that her charge was no longer standing there - a moment later, noise started coming from the barn.

Before Claudia could rush in to see what was going on, Myka burst out of the barn atop Goliath. She hadn't even saddled him, but that didn't seem to phase her at all - she just dug her heels in and raced right past Claudia, urging the charger on all the while. Claudia just barely managed to avoid being trampled - there was absolutely nothing she could do in that moment to actually stop Myka.

Peeling herself away from the barn wall, Claudia stared despairingly out into the darkness. "Helena's going to kill me..."


	14. Chapter Thirteen

NOTES: This chapter is short, but hits much harder than even I expected. No fussing at me, 'cause you've all been warned! :P

On a more serious note, this chapter is probably the most gruesome thus far as well, though the violence isn't explicit - for those sensitive to such things, an animal does die in one of the wolf hunter's traps.

{*****}

Myka rode through the rain and the darkness like a woman possessed - wet branches lashed at her face as she forced Goliath through the underbrush, and her still-healing shoulder burned with the strain of controlling the warhorse. None of it mattered to her now, though - the only thing that mattered was the terrible fear gnawing at her insides.

The first gown she'd worn since her wedding night two years ago - the gown Claudia had been so proud of stealing for her - clung to her now like a wet sack, nothing more than an impediment to her pursuit. The warm lights of the inn, the promise of wine and happy music as she'd danced in the barn with Claudia - all of it seemed like a fever dream now.

This was reality: rain, darkness, and the never-ending terror that, somewhere in the night, there was a black wolf in mortal danger.

Seeing something up ahead - no more, really, than two darker shapes against the darkness - Myka slowed Goliath before reining him in. The two darker shapes she had spotted were the wolf hunter's horses, tied to a tree and doing their best to keep their backs to the wind - even with increasing visibility as the rain started to let up, there was no sign of their master.

Myka decided to dismount, and her feet had barely touched the sodden ground when a wolf suddenly howled nearby. Trying to track the sound in the darkness, she fought the urge to scream at the poor beast to run far, far away - it was pointless when Helena's wolf-self was drawn to her side in the same way her hawk-self was drawn to Helena's, each driven by curse-borne instinct to protect its other half.

It was no accident that the wolf hunter had recognized Myka's name, and Myka knew it meant only one thing - he'd been sent to kill Helena. Even growing up surrounded by warriors - even having married two of them - she'd never been a violent woman, but there was only one way she would allow this night to end. Reaching into Goliath's saddlebag, she retrieved the dagger that Pete, Charles, and Helena had so painstakingly taught her to use.

Gripping the dagger hilt securely - as much for reassurance as from her many lessons - Myka started into the trees. The hunter could not have gone far - he hadn't had the time, for one, and he also knew enough to understand that Myka was all the bait he needed to draw the wolf. So intent on searching him out was she that she got careless and snapped a dead branch under one foot as she walked.

She froze, listening, but there was no answering noise - just the endless pitter-patter of rain dripping from tree leaves. Silently cursing her clumsiness, she forced herself to pay closer attention - she'd learned to ride and hunt and track better than any man, just like she'd learned to use the blade she currently held, but it was so much harder to navigate quietly in the dark.

She froze a second time as she spied a figure up ahead of her - the hunter was crouched down in the middle of a tiny clearing in the trees. She held her breath as he suddenly glanced around like an animal sensing a predator, but he just returned to whatever he was doing before rising to his feet and disappearing into the darkness.

Myka followed after him silently, slipping through the clearing where he'd been crouched. When her foot brushed against something hard and cold and wet, she assumed it was a rock buried under the leaves and continued on her way.

The hunter, who plied his trade by night and had senses as good as any wolf's, had known the woman - Myka - was there from the start. It suited his plans, so he picked a hiding place and waited until she had passed. Once she had gone, he stepped out from behind his tree and gathered several small nearby stones.

Myka, sensing she'd lost her quarry, stopped to listen again, but was only met with the same eerie silence as before. Somewhere in the nearby forest, a black wolf caught her scent, steam curling from its nostrils into the chill and damp as it sniffed at the air.

The wolf hunter moved again, hurling one of the stones he'd gathered. It struck the trap nearest the woman - that was no mere rock her foot had brushed against - and its steel jaws snapped shut with an impossibly loud clang.

Myka spun toward the sound, dagger at the ready. She peered into the darkness for any sign of its origin, but the forest had fallen quiet again.

The black wolf, nose still in the air, pricked its ears at the unexpected noise. After hesitating a moment, it turned to trot toward the source.

The hunter tossed another stone, and a second trap clanged shut. Myka, shaking and panting with adrenaline and exertion, turned toward it but was met with still more silence.

"Coward!" Myka called out, unwilling to be frightened away by the hunter's game. "Show yourself!"

The hunter - ignoring her taunts - merely continued to crouch in the underbrush, waiting with deadly, merciless patience. His patience was rewarded two-fold - first when another trap clanged shut, accompanied by a wolf's cry of anguish, and again as he watched the same anguish slide across the woman's face.

Springing into action, the hunter leapt up from his hiding place and ran for his trap - a large wolf lay dead in its jaws, crushed by steel strong enough to hold a bear. Grinning in feral satisfaction, the hunter released the trap and dragged the carcass from it - pausing afterward only to reset the trap, he turned to run for the trees again.

Before the hunter could even take a step, however, something snarled - loud and menacing - directly behind him. His eyes narrowed as he turned slowly to see what he faced - an enormous black wolf stood there, hackles raised. It growled again, baring its fangs.

The hunter pushed to his feet, preparing for a fight, but the woman suddenly stood before him, blocking his escape as she stared him down with cold, angry eyes. Feinting at him with her knife, she drove him back several steps before somehow knocking his feet out from under him. He landed in one of his own traps and it sprung perfectly, jaws closing around his throat and choking off any final plea for mercy.

Myka - still gasping and shaking - just stood there staring down at the hunter's body, filled with triumph and satisfaction. The black wolf stared at her with inscrutable amber eyes for a long moment, its tongue lolling almost as if in greeting, before it bolted back into the trees as if spooked.

It didn't take long to identify what had frightened it - two people were rapidly approaching the clearing from different directions, both making a huge amount of noise. Myka, suddenly too numb to care about the new threats, merely stood and watched as both Claudia and Pete burst into the clearing, calling her name. They both skidded to a stop as they took in the scene with equally horrified expressions.

Myka, ignoring them both, started over to the poor dead wolf's body. As she passed the hunter's body, though, she suddenly stumbled and let out a sharp shriek - the hunter, not yet dead, had grabbed her ankle with one bloody hand. He raised his head to glare at Myka, lips pulled back in a defiant snarl - she, in turn, lifted one foot and kicked him in the face, after which he went still for good.

Myka didn't move again, either, even after the dead hunter's hand dropped away from her foot - she just stood there like a statue, frozen and unseeing, until Pete forcibly moved her away. Claudia, equally frozen once the realization of what had happened in the clearing finally set in, couldn't blame her.

Myka finally shook off her paralysis when Pete excused himself to change into his own clothes - the idea of him in Helena's ill-fitting uniform would have been hilarious under any other circumstance but this - and moved to kneel beside the dead wolf, ignoring the cold, wet ground. "It isn't her. It isn't Helena."

The words sounded dull and hazy to Myka's ears, but then so did everything else - she barely even noticed when the rain stopped and a flash of moon peeked between the breaking clouds. All her attention was focused on the poor, pitiful creature who had died in Helena's place - there was no way for her to tell its exact color, but it had clearly been a creature of beauty and grace.

That beauty and that grace were gone now, snuffed out along with its intelligence, its very life - all stolen from it because of an obsessive, jealous vendetta. Myka looked over to the hunter again, feeling only a certain vague satisfaction at the poetic justice in his end, then looked back to the wolf - the futility of it all brought tears to her eyes, but she couldn't seem to cry.

Instead, she let the tears streak down her cheeks in silence. Claudia watched in equal silence for as long as she could stand - not long at all, really - then went to stand by Myka's side as they both stared down at the tragedy in front of them. After another awkward pause, Claudia finally found the courage to place a comforting hand on her friend's shoulder.

"I wish to God that it *was* her," Myka whispered, voice raw. "Or even me."

That... hurt, somehow, and Claudia couldn't help protesting. "You don't mean that! You don't want Helena to die!"

Myka stared up at Claudia - so innocent, so full of hope, so full of life despite her apparent cynicism - and felt her heart break all over again. She'd been like that, once, even after the curse had been set. Now, though, she had only pain and bitterness, and she didn't even bother to keep it out of her voice. "And what would someone like you know about love?"

Claudia flinched a little at the anger in Myka's words, but didn't back away. "Not much, really - just what I've heard in all the songs and stories."

"That doesn't mean I never wanted to know for myself, though," she added wistfully. Even after seeing what terrible odds Myka and Helena were up against - and how it was decidedly *not* like the tales she'd been told - she couldn't help but hope that they could make it back to each other somehow.

Myka stayed kneeling in the mud, refusing - or unable - to let go of the poor dead wolf in front of her. "Don't bother. I've loved, more than once, and all it ever did was make me want to die."

Something in her finally broke, then, and she pushed herself to her feet, snatching at Claudia's sleeve. "You tell Helena that, next time you see her. Tell her I'd rather die than live like this."

When Claudia said nothing, and made no protest to distract her, Myka's emotional storm continued on, picking up speed and force as it went. She was close to hysterical with it now, as everything she'd kept so carefully buried suddenly broke loose. "Tell her I curse the day we met! Tell her that I curse the day we married - that I never loved her! Tell her..."

The tempest died just as quickly as it had started, robbing Myka of its strength and driving her to her knees. "Oh God... How can she just keep living like this, day after day, when I know she hurts just as much as I do? How can she pretend there's any hope left for us?"

Claudia blinked and blinked, then blinked some more, trying to hold back her own tears. Her hands twitched and quivered at her side as she fought the urge to reach out to Myka until she couldn't stand it any longer and placed a hand on Myka's head. Then, in a tiny, choked voice, she blurted out the only answer she had. "Because Helena loves you!"

Myka took a startled breath and rocked back on her heels as if struck. Something heavy and ugly left her spirit as she exhaled that breath, and she was finally able to think again. Rising to her feet, she actually smiled at Claudia, or as near to it as was possible in that moment.

The child doubtless had no idea how powerful her words were. To hear such open, unquestioning acceptance of a love that had had to be carefully hidden away from the moment it had first been acknowledged - its untimely revelation leading to the hell on Earth they were all currently trapped in - was probably the one thing that could have drawn Myka back from the abyss she'd stood on.

She'd endured two years of silence, two years of loneliness, learning to suffer through them the same way she suffered through everything else in her terrible new life. She'd endured in silence, too, trying her best to make sure Pete never felt like his efforts to take care of her were all in vain - oh, she and Helena had left each other letters and notes at first, by the dozens, but even that had become too painful to continue.

In this moment, though - to this strange thief-turned-guardian angel - she could confess the one thing she'd never confessed to anyone. "I miss her so much. She's the first thing I think about when I wake up at sunset - her smile, the way she used to touch my face when we were alone..."

Myka's eyes went soft and unfocused, and Claudia knew she'd drifted back to happier times. "She used to run her fingers along my ear, and then down the side of my face. At the end of it, she'd touch my lips, then steal my smile away with a kiss..."

Claudia vowed then and there that she would help them be together again, no matter what. "We'll fix this, Myka. I swear to God - and the only kind of God I could ever believe in will help make it happen."

Myka's expression turned strange as she reached out to touch Claudia's face. "Just promise me that you won't go away, too - whatever happens..."

Claudia, struck by her own sudden tumult of emotion, could only flinch and pull away, knowing she wasn't really worthy. "I... I've told Helena not to rely too much on me - I told my parents ten years ago that I was only leaving for an hour."

"I'm... sorry," Myka said, face rueful as she realized how she'd unwittingly overstepped her bounds. "It's just that we've never had anyone to help us, before now."

She made herself face and accept the notion that Claudia might not stay - that one night very soon it would be just herself, Pete, and the wild wolf again. Some of the weight that had lifted settled right back onto her shoulders, but it still seemed a little lighter than before somehow - they'd be truly blessed to have Claudia's friendship for however long she chose to stick around.

Claudia's voice was surprisingly shaky when she finally responded. "I'm here until we finish this, Myka. After that - I don't know..."

Some final wall between them crumbled, then, as their fledgling friendship finally took permanent root. When Pete walked back into the clearing a moment later, they were hugging each other as they simultaneously laughed and cried like lunatics - even more so after seeing Pete's confused expression at finding them like that.

The levity and release didn't last long, though. Turning as one toward the poor dead wolf, the three of them together somehow managed to get each other through the terrible ordeal of giving the pitiful creature the burial it deserved.


	15. Chapter Fourteen

Walter Sykes fought his own impatience and unease as he led a handful of his men through a ruined old abbey by torchlight - neither Marcus nor his own men had reported back, and the only trail they'd been able to find had led them here. Sykes didn't like the place one bit, but tried to cover his misgivings by standing impassively at the drawbridge as the others combed the interior.

He was tired, and filthy, and stank of horse, none of which did anything to help his rapidly blackening mood. There was no sign to be found of Marcus and his men after the trail that led up to the abbey entrance - no proof that they'd ever even been here, much less left it. Someone else had, though - several someones, actually, who'd all apparently left in rather a hurry. Biting back a sigh, he turned toward the noise as the most senior of the searching guards hurried up to him.

"No sign of Marcus or his men, sir," the guard confirmed, clearly not any more pleased than his captain. Then he held up a hawk's feather, stained with blood, knowing it was important but not yet certain how or why. "But we did find this."

Sykes squinted at it in the torchlight, a slow, ugly smile spreading across his face as several looming questions were suddenly answered. Looking up at the abbey - the abbey whose crumbling walls had sheltered the Bishop's mortal enemy, and his own - he raised his hand and encompassed it all in one sweeping, decisive gesture. "Burn it down."

The men, though confused and reluctant, did their job well. Sykes turned back for one last glance as the party rode down the trail, feeling a certain dark satisfaction as he watched flames consume the ruins - much as the Bishop believed the flames of hell would soon consume Helena de Navarre.

Helena strode into the makeshift campsite as light began to fill the sky, mood strangely black despite the glorious new day. The hawk, never far from its mistress, soared high in the air, the morning sunlight glinting off its feathers as it silhouetted the creature against a nearby mountain peak.

Spotting its mistress - and its friend the dog - the hawk circled down to land in a nearby tree. The dog barked happily, greeting its constant companion, and Helena was forced to look away from the happy, familiar display with a grim expression as something cold and angry stirred inside her. She couldn't consciously remember the events of the night before, but enough knowledge remained to make her anxious and edgy.

Certain that something unfortunate had happened, she was both surprised and relieved to find Claudia sound asleep beside the dead embers of a campfire, looking none the worse for wear. The thief was sleeping like the child she was, Helena's sword clutched to her like a favorite toy - or perhaps a lover, given that Claudia was not nearly so young as she sometimes seemed.

Something in that thought ignited Helena's temper - she crossed to Claudia's side and yanked the sword from her arms. Claudia, startled and frightened, woke with a cry and scrambled to her feet, ready to fight for Helena's sword. Somehow, seeing that it was Helena who had taken it did little reassure her, and she just stood there shivering, one hand holding her blankets around her while the other rubbed at her bleary eyes.

Helena stared at the girl, dark eyes cold and unreadable, before turning to look at the mountain peaks that already gleamed with freshly fallen snow. If she rode all day, with nothing to slow her down, she could be in Aquila tomorrow. "All the roads on this side of the valley are useless to us. The only way to Aquila is through the mountains."

"It will be freezing - there's snow above the timberlines now." Helena hurled those last words like a challenge, fully expecting to see Claudia change her mind and find an excuse to leave.

She waited patiently for the child to reconsider, to make some careful and facile argument as to why she was no longer needed on Helena's mission - prayed, even, that she would, taking the burden of her young life and meaningless death from Helena's shoulders. Claudia did no such thing, however - against all expectation, she just stood watching Helena in quiet confusion until Helena merely shrugged and turned away to check on Goliath.

Someone wiser and less foolhardy would have known better than to challenge Helena when this sort of mood was on her - Claudia, apparently, was both unwise and particularly foolhardy. She kicked at the cold ashes almost angrily as she spoke. "They'll kill you. And then they'll kill her - or give her to the Bishop. You won't get within a hundred yards of him, and you know it."

Helena, refusing to acknowledge Claudia's words, just hooked her sword over the saddle's pommel before swinging up onto Goliath's back. She stared at the young thief without saying a word, jaw set with both anger and stubbornness, then dug her heels into Goliath's sides to urge him on.

"You have to listen to me," Claudia called out in exasperation as she ran for her own horse. "There's no reason for you to die! You know it won't hurt to give Artie's plan a chance!"

Helena must not have been trying too hard to outpace Claudia - Claudia caught up with her inside a quarter of a mile, and they rode on together in silence. There was little point in Claudia talking, anyway - Helena pointedly ignored the few attempts she made to do so as their horses picked their way steadily upward along the pass.

To be fair, Helena might simply have been lost in her own thoughts. The trees grew thinner and thinner as they traveled, skirting the snowfields, and the sunlight glimmering off the icy terrain made Helena think of her childhood home. Her family's ancestral estates were nestled among similar mountains, a mere five days' journey to the west - a mere five days away, and now forever beyond her reach.

Claudia yawned loudly, teeth chattering, and Helena felt a sudden pang as she realized how cold and tired and frail the child looked. Helena's scrutiny went unnoticed, though, as Claudia muttered to herself. "God, what a night..."

Helena frowned, not liking the sound of that. Claudia's only task had been to safeguard Myka, and Pete's presence should have made that completely unnecessary. "What... a night?"

"Huh?" Claudia's eyes jerked to Helena's face as her own expression turned sheepish. Catching herself, she just smiled pleasantly and pulled her blankets tighter around her shoulders, as if she'd merely been caught dozing. "Oh, nothing Pete and I couldn't take care of, Captain."

Claudia's attempted levity did little to stem the sudden wave of unwarranted suspicion and jealousy that struck Helena. The hawk called from high in the air above them, and Helena used it as an excuse to look away. Having the sense to avoid its mistress when she was in a mood - unlike the much more foolish dog - the bird had steered clear of Helena all morning. Now, though, it began to circle downward, and Helena smiled despite herself as she lifted her arm expectantly.

That smile died as the bird flew right past her, flying straight for Claudia and landing on her hastily outstretched arm instead - Helena's face echoed the disbelief in Claudia's startled cry. Claudia, face full of guilt and embarrassment, couldn't make herself meet Helena's eyes - instead, she made a feeble attempt at a smile and stared down at the hawk on her arm.

"Nice bird," she whispered, shaking her arm. "Good little hawk. Go to your lady now - go to Helena."

The bird didn't even seem to hear Claudia's entreaty, and in fact moved to tighten its grip on its perch. Claudia's voice took on a note of desperation as she continued urging the bird to move. "Go on, Ladyhawke."

The creature remained locked onto Claudia's arm - not surprisingly, Myka was stubborn in any form. Claudia squirmed under Helena's withering stare as the bird cocked its head and gazed at her almost pleasantly - she couldn't quite make sense of the ugly, angry undercurrent she was sensing, but Helena was clearly upset, and it was safe to say that it wasn't the bird Helena would take it out on.

"Tell me about it," Helena said finally. Her voice was cool and collected, but it didn't fool either of them.

"Captain?" Claudia was equal parts genuinely confused and genuinely fearful. She still didn't understand what was making Helena so angry, but she easily recognized it as the dangerous, irrational sort of anger she'd seen in her during their first few days together.

"Last night, Claudia," Helena enunciated slowly and carefully. "Tell me what happened last night."

Something suddenly clicked in Claudia's brain, and she began to understand the problem. It didn't help much - a jealous Helena was probably even more dangerous than an angry one. "There's nothing to tell. We ran into some trouble at an inn, but-"

"You took Myka to an inn?!" Helena seemed caught between angry and incredulous.

"Go on, Ladyhawke! Go to Helena - go to your lady!" The bird continued to ignore Claudia's growing distress, quite comfortable where it was, and so Claudia just gave up and continued her explanation. "We stopped at the stable first, to get the horses dry. I stole some dry clothes for us, and we changed-"

That was apparently the wrong thing to say. Claudia took one look at Helena's face and hastily backpedaled. "We didn't change together! I gave Myka her privacy."

Helena wasn't especially mollified. Pete would have needed time to find them, and so- "You left her alone, in a strange place?"

Claudia couldn't help but be a little insulted at Helena's completely unfounded jealousy and pettiness. "I was just outside the stable doors, where I could see anyone who tried to come in. Afterward, I told her you said to do whatever I told her to - I told her to go with me into the inn, so she could see the wedding party they were having. We danced in the stable for a minute first-"

Helena's fist was wrapped in Claudia's tunic before she was even conscious of moving, almost pulling the girl off her horse, and she'd started reaching for her sword without even realizing it. The hawk shrieked loudly in protest, taking back to the air, and the normally docile dog actually growled and snapped at Helena as it came to Claudia's defense.

The sheer ridiculousness of it all caused the angry haze to recede a little, and Helena forced herself to let go and move Goliath away a few steps to give Claudia some space. Claudia lied often, and well - and who could blame the child? - but had shown a remarkable ability to tell the truth when it truly mattered.

To doubt her honesty was to doubt Myka's faithfulness, and that was both cruel and unjustified. She herself hadn't looked on anyone in these last two years with any real desire, except when something about them reminded her of Myka - there was no doubt in her mind that it had been the same for her wife.

Claudia exhaled slowly as she watched Helena come back to herself. Part of her knew she should protest the way she'd been treated, perhaps even demand an apology - hell, she'd be totally justified in simply walking away after what had just happened - but she'd come to understand a little of the pain and loneliness that made Helena so volatile. "Look, I won't lie. Myka's amazing, and I wouldn't be human if I wasn't a little... curious, but she loves you. You're all she ever talks about."

She forced herself to meet and hold Helena's gaze, ignoring with great effort the tears she saw in Helena's eyes. Helena forced a somewhat wobbly smile as she started Goliath moving again. "Tell me everything. And believe me when I tell you that I'll know if you're making it up."

After the loss of control she'd just witnessed, Claudia wasn't about to relay the previous night's misadventure - she'd do that when Helena was calmer. As she considered just what to say, though, she saw a possible way to help steer Helena away from her death wish - it would be ugly, and cruel, but it just might work. "She misses you - it makes her sad, and angry. She talked about the day you two met - she... cursed it."

Claudia watched Helena slump a little in the saddle, clearly hurt, and wished she didn't have to inflict further pain to get the result she wanted. Myka was the only thing capable of making Helena reconsider her suicide mission, though, and Claudia needed Helena feeling guilty about how much this was hurting her. "She started crying and ordered me to tell you she never loved you."

For all her carefully crafted words, the emotion in Claudia's voice was genuine as she continued, a note of hope and remembered joy meant to counter the painful tale she'd just delivered. "She was lying, though. After she calmed down a little, she told me about how you used to touch her ear and her face to make her smile. Afterward, you'd steal her smile with a kiss."

Knowing from the shift in Helena's posture that her words had struck home, Claudia moved to put the finishing touch to the conversation. "She loves you so much, Captain. You should have seen her face when she talked about you!"

Helena, ignoring the tears streaking down her cheeks, looked down at the hawk. It had perched on her arm as if in apology for snubbing her, and was currently staring off into the sky as it searched for things unknowable to mere humans. She, in turn, searched its golden eyes for signs of a humanity that simply wasn't there to be found.

The curse overrode every instinct, human and animal - the hawk was drawn to her above its own kind, even as her wolf self was drawn to Myka. It was best to not even begin contemplating what poor gentle, loyal Pete had sacrificed to stand by them both - or Charles, before his death...

That was perhaps the worst of it - they couldn't live as human beings, not in their cursed state, but lacked even the instinct to seek out their own kind for comfort as animals. "Did you know that hawks and wolves both mate for life?"

The words - and their meaning - struck Claudia like a blow and she found herself at a very rare loss for words. "I didn't know that. I'm... sorry."

"The curse didn't even leave us that," Helena murmured, more to herself than to anyone else. Then she pulled to a sudden stop, face hardening at the sight before her.

Arthur Weisfelt sat in a mule-drawn cart, Steve beside him, and the cart was blocking the path ahead completely. Steve looked... disappointed, perhaps, but Artie was apparently frustrated to the point of being unable to stay silent. "You know what will happen if you try to kill the Bishop, Helena. If you don't give a damn about yourself, then try thinking of Myka, and Pete."

Helena's hand moved involuntarily to her sword - this man, of all men, had no right to invoke Myka's name. Or Pete's. "Perhaps I should kill you instead, old man."

Artie had no rebuttal for that - he was well aware of the part he had played in the curse. Steve, though, finally seemed to find his voice. "If you won't trust him, Helena, then trust me. You're already going to Aquila - are you so ready to die that you can't wait a day to see if the curse can be broken?"

Artie was desperate enough to try adding one last plea to Steve's own. "Let us help you, Helena - let *me* help you. In two days - two days - you can face the Bishop with Myka at your side. The two of you can watch together as the curse breaks and the Bishop gets what he deserves."

Helena's hand - still clenched around her sword hilt - tensed and relaxed several times in rapid succession as Helena fought with herself. Part of her was busy spinning out fantasies of happily ever after with Myka - the other part was reminding her quite clearly that there was no such thing as. That was the bitter lesson she'd spent the last two years learning, though, and there was little doubt that it would win the battle. "I will be in Aquila tomorrow, and nothing you do will stop me. One way or another, I am ending this."

Claudia, having watched that tug-of-war play out across Helena's face, couldn't stay quiet any longer. "Damn it, Captain! Give them a chance!"

Helena glared at her, but Claudia refused to be cowed. Summoning the courage she'd learned from her new friends - Helena included - she cleared her throat and continued on. "One more day, Captain. You could have Myka back, and Pete!"

The earnest, pleading look in Claudia's eyes could have melted the hardest of hearts. It would've melted Helena's, had her heart not been diamond instead of mere stone - she just shook her head in disgust and sneered at her unexpectedly traitorous friend. "_Et tu_, Claudia?"

Claudia didn't understand the Latin words, or the reference, but she certainly caught Helena's meaning clearly enough. She was obviously hurt by it, but didn't protest or try to explain herself - instead, she just stood there in silence as if she already knew it was pointless, shivering as the icy mountain winds lashed at them all.

"Stay here with them, then," Helena said finally. "See what other delusions they can fill your head with."

Claudia, jolted back into action, just shook her head. "No! I'm coming with you! I can still help!"

"No, you stay," Helena insisted, even as she saw Claudia stiffen in defiance. "I will have too many enemies in front of me without having to watch the ones behind - or beside - me."

The words were unjust, and Helena knew it. Still, she couldn't make herself take them back, so she just wheeled Goliath around and galloped off - she couldn't actually see Claudia sitting on her own horse, face filled with anger and hurt as she stared down at the snow, but that didn't mean she couldn't picture it in agonizing detail anyway.

"You did the right thing, Claudia," Artie said at length. "You stood up for the truth."

Claudia just continued staring off into the snow, shivering forlornly as the wind buffeted her. "I should have known better. Every good thing I've ever had came from lying."

Helena continued on alone, a stark figure in black against a vast field of white. In all honesty, she was glad to be on her own again - it was a relief to be free of everything but this one last task, and to be free of all those who might be destroyed by it. She'd lost even the semblance of control over her own fate two years ago, but at least her death would be of her own design.

The dog was cavorting happily in the snow, but the hawk was huddled beneath Helena's cloak - every so often it would nip at her hands as of complaining about the cold and their forced trek through it. Helena glanced at both of them - at Myka and Pete, she forced herself to acknowledge - and found herself filled with a strange mixture of guilt, and sorrow, and affection.

This was the last bit of suffering they would have to do on her account. There would be no more bitter winter nights without proper shelter, no more springs without even a hint of the sun, no more autumns with their beauty leached away by the darkness. Their lives had been bound long before the curse, and perhaps God, in whatever stunted mercy He might have, would let them remain together after their imminent deaths - if nothing else, perhaps He would at least grant them all peace and forgetfulness.

Until that final moment arrived, though, neither Myka nor Pete needed to know what awaited them - she could spare them that much, at least. Steeling herself, Helena stared off into the glaring snowfields, blaming them for the tears that suddenly stole her vision...


End file.
